The Girl Next Door (reworked)
by TexanRose
Summary: This is the typical girl next door story, but with Aria and Ezra it might not be so typical. AU/No Alison or A. If you read my other version of this, this is an updated one and the writing is much more solid and developed, and the themes are a little more adult, especially as the story progresses. The storyline is similar, but not quite the same.
1. Mourning and Mending

**A/N If you like my other version of the Girl Next Door, then you'll love this one. It's much more well-written and thought out, and I'll promise I'll finish it. **

**Ezra is older than Aria in this story by nine years, but nothing happens until she is at least sixteen (probably seventeen). **

**I do not own PLL or any of its characters. **

**Please Review! Reviews=Updates. **

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With uncanny precision, Aria Montgomery could recall where she had been the afternoon of June 27, 2007, even years later. It was where she had spent most of the summer, on the porch swing of her backyard, rocking the hours away. Often there with a soft cover book or her neon purple journal, Aria passed her days in quiet contentment. Although her mother complained about her lethargy and lack of energy, she let it pass that summer. Aria had just lost people very dear to her heart.

That afternoon, like most afternoons, Aria sat there with a book, a copy of _To Kill a Mockingbird_. She stared at the well-worn pages, yellowed with age and wrinkled with use. She seemed to stare at the black and white words in front of her, long moments passing before she turned a page. She was lost in her own world, in thoughts that no thirteen-year-old girl should ponder.

It was noise from the boarded up house next door, the sound of a garage door opening and doors being shut closed that caused her to look up from her careful reading. Catching a glimpse of dark hair and a grey sedan, Aria wondered who had come to take possession of the neighbors' house. She thought about the stranger for a moment. It was most definitely a male figure, maybe a nephew to the previous owners? Aria was sure that the home had not been purchased. No real estate agents had surveyed the property or acquainted anyone with the empty house. It had stood there quietly, a silent memorial to the people who had left it behind.

Sighing, Aria stopped her swinging for a moment and stared intently at the closed windows. Did this new person have a family? Was he old or was he young? Would he let her come and look at the books in the study like Mr. and Mrs. Springer used too? At the last thought, Aria bit her lip in frustration and angrily wiped away a tear. She wouldn't cry anymore. She told herself she wouldn't.

Aria looked down at her book before closing it and hugging it close, brining her knees up to her chest to shelter it in her embrace. She was there for longer than she could keep count of, a part of her hoping to catch a glimpse of the stranger again. But when her mother called her in for dinner, she knew it was time to let it be. She would know who he was soon enough.

At Montgomery house, dinner was always a family affair during the summer months. Neither of Aria's parents worked during the summer; her mother taught art appreciation at the high school while her father was a professor at Hollis College, the local liberal arts university. In past summers, Aria had always appreciated their closeness and the warm family feeling she got when they did something as a family—her, her mother, her father, and Mike, her younger brother. This summer, it had felt suffocating and irritating, and Aria had almost always sat through dinner without saying a word.

But that night, much to her parents surprise and pleasure, she initiated the conversation, taking an active part in what everyone was saying.

"Who moved in next door?" she asked softly, as her mother passed the potatoes and her father buttered his bread.

Byron Montgomery carefully lowered the butter knife and looked at his daughter carefully. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I didn't hear you."

"I asked," said Aria more forcefully, "Who moved in next door?"

"I'm not sure," said Ella, "but I remember Anne saying that they were saving that house for a family member."

"Do you think it's the same boy that Grandpa Springer built that tree house for?"

Mike, who had been doing everything in his power to concentrate on the peas he was trying not to eat, looked at his sister in awe. It was the first time she had mentioned that name all summer.

"Maybe," answered Ella matter-of-factly. "I'll go visit tomorrow and find out. Would you like to come with me?"

Aria shrank in her seat and shook her head in response. "May I be excused?" She quietly left the table when her father gave his assent.

Looking out her bedroom window, Aria received a picturesque view of the house next door. She saw the light was on in one of the bedrooms and another light was on downstairs, although curtains obscured her view as to what exactly was going on. Closing her own curtain, she climbed on to her daybed and began writing in her journal. When she had exhausted herself from writing down pages of her thoughts and questions, she fell asleep, her fingers still clenching her pen.

The next morning Ella Montgomery took a plate of freshly baked cookies to their new neighbor. Aria grabbed one of the cookies on the plate and snuck into her room, nibbling on it as she looked out the window. Her mother's visit seemed to be going well. She must have been talking to the neighbor for over an hour. Aria marked her mother's coming and going, noting that she could not catch a glimpse of the man.

"He's young," said Ella at dinner that night. "And lonely."

"How long does he plan on staying?" asked Byron. "After everything that happened…" his voice faded for a moment as he glanced Aria before resuming its normal tenor, "I can't imagine he would want to stick around for very long."

"I don't know how long he'll stay, but he'll be here at least for the next year. He got a job at the high school."

"Did they leave the house to him?"

"I think so. I think he's the only family the Springers' had left."

"When do we get to meet him?" asked Mike, between mouthfuls of lasagna.

"I was thinking about inviting him over for dinner on Friday," responded Ella. "Would that be okay?" she asked Aria.

Nodding her consent, Aria asked, "What's his name?"

"Ezra," said Ella as she took a sip of her iced tea. "Ezra Fitz."

The next day, when her mother wasn't paying attention, Aria walked over to the house where the Springers used to live. With someone new living there, she could no longer think of it as their house anymore. She hugged her well-worn copy of _To Kill a Mockingbird_ close to her chest as if it could shield her from imminent unpleasantness. She walked up the wooden steps to the front porch, dread in her every step. Slowly, she raised her hand to the door and pressed the doorbell, hearing its soft ring as she stood outside. She was in the middle of taking deep breaths to calm herself when the door was opened.

"Yes?" said a male voice curiously.

Aria looked up at him. Her mother had said Ezra Fitz was a lonely man, but she had never said that he was sad. She could see the distress in the dark circles around his brilliant blue eyes and the lines near a mouth that looked like it had been used for smiling, once upon a time. "My name is Aria. My mom came to visit you yesterday."

He nodded. "I remember Mrs. Montgomery."

Building up her courage, Aria held her treasured book towards him. "I came to give this back to you."

"It it mine?" he asked in bewilderment.

"It was Grandpa Springer's," whispered Aria. "It was the last thing he lent me before he died."

The neighbor surveyed the book in his hand and then looked in a daze at the girl in front of him. And something in his heart broke. "Would you like to come in, Aria?" he asked.

Aria looked quickly toward her house, and then nodded in misery. When she walked through the front door, everything seemed like it had always been. The pictures were where they always were, the same pillows were out of place on the sofa, and the house still smelled of freshly baked pie. Sitting down somehow uncomfortably on the sofa, Aria looked at the man across from her. He was sad and young. He wore a t-shirt and jeans, and his dark hair was in disarray. But he seemed nice, and he must be if he was related the Springers.

"You were close to them weren't you?" asked Mr. Fitz carefully. "Mr. and Mrs. Springer?"

She nodded. "We moved here three years ago, and we became close. I don't really remember how, we just were. They were like my grandparents."

"Are you going to be okay?"

Aria shrugged in response.

"I think," he said, sliding the well-worn copy of _To Kill a Mockingbird_ across the coffee table, "that this belongs to you."

Aria swallowed. "It was only a loan. Grandpa Springer lent me books all the time. He let me borrow this one the day before the accident."

"I think he would have liked you to keep it, as something to remember him by."

Slowly Aria grabbed the book and resumed hugging it close to her chest.

"Is there something you would like to remember_ her_ by?" the man asked gently.

"I—I-," Aria began before her voice cracked. "I just want Grandma Springer back, and Grandpa, too." She began to cry softly, but as she tried to calm herself, her tears became sobs. Before she realized it, Mr. Fitz was sitting next to her, and she was crying into his t-shirt. It was a while before either of them said anything.

Gradually, Aria began to compose herself, and Mr. Fitz saw to it that she went to the bathroom to clean herself up. As Aria exited the bathroom, she picked up the book that had been left on the coffee table, and gathered herself to leave. "Thank you, Mr. Fitz," she said politely from the doorway. "This book means a lot to me."

"You're welcome. And you can come here any time and borrow anything."

"I'll see you on Friday, Mr. Fitz."

"It's Ezra," he called out to her as she walked across his front yard. "I'm twenty-two not forty-two." He continued to watch her as she walked up the steps to her own house and went inside.

At family dinner that night, Aria surprised her mother with a request. She asked that Ella make ravioli when they had their new neighbor over for dinner. It was with mute surprise that Ella agreed, and she and Byron smiled at each other when Aria wasn't looking. Maybe the new neighbor would be good for their daughter.

As requested, on Friday evening, Ella made ravioli, and Aria could smell the aroma of pasta cooking as she opened the door to let Ezra in. He greeted her with a warm smile, and Aria saw that the circles around his eyes were almost gone.

Ezra complimented Ella on her cooking. Ella smiled at the compliment and told him that Aria had requested the dish. It was a family recipe.

"Is your family Italian?" asked Ezra curiously.

"Yes," answered Ella politely. "My grandmother immigrated from a small village in Tuscany. This was one of her favorite dishes to make. One day, I'd like to go and see the house she lived in."

"I bet you and Aria get your beautiful hair from her," said Ezra. As soon as he said the words he regretted them and realized how inappropriate they were. His face reddened.

"Actually, it is," responded Ella kindly. "My mother's hair is the same shade of brown, too."

"So, what subject are you teaching, Ezra?" interjected Byron. "Ella told me that you got a teaching job at the high school."

"English. I'm teaching eleventh grade American literature and twelfth grade British fiction."

"Aria's about to enter eighth grade. Maybe you'll have her in class in a few years."

"Maybe," answered Ezra non-committally. "I don't know how long I plan to be in Rosewood."

"Any other plans?" asked Byron.

"Nothing specific," answered Ezra. "But I don't know how long I'm meant to be here. That house brings up a lot of memories." The air surrounding the table suddenly seemed thick with awkward tension.

"We're so sorry about Elliot and Anne," said Ella carefully. "After that horrible car accident." She shook her head. "It wasn't right."

The table became silent as every person began concentrating on eating their dinner, or in Mike's case, concentrated on eating anything that wasn't green.

"How are you related to them?" asked Aria. Her tone was both curious and demanding, and both of her parents were surprised that she was being so forceful.

"They were my grandparents," answered Ezra after a moment. "My maternal grandparents."

Aria said very little after that, picking at her food and eyeing the clock behind Mike's head. As soon as she could, she ran upstairs to her room and buried her face in her pillow.

Aria spent the rest of her summer slowly healing from the devastation of the Springers' deaths. As a young thirteen-year-old who had never dealt with loss or death before, Ella thought she was doing remarkably well. Her mother noticed her appetite grew and she became more talkative. She helped out, little by little, more and more around the house. She began to read more books, books other than _To Kill a Mockingbird_, and she began to play with her friends again.

Byron thought Aria was doing much better than she had been, and her life was returning to its previous pace. He noticed his daughter was much more ready to smile and laugh and that she seemed to be enjoying the company of others, her constant need for solitude slowly fading. The more Byron thought about it, the more he was ready to conclude that Aria's new burst of energy and health had to do with their new neighbor. Ezra seemed like a nice young man, and he was patient with both Aria and Mike. He was always ready to join in a friendly game a basketball with Mike, and Aria spent her summer reading _Of Mice and Men_, a book lent to her by Ezra. A part of Byron hoped that this meant that Ezra would stay longer than the school year, another part of him wondered why such a vibrant young man would want to settle in Rosewood and live in the house his grandparents owned.

As for Ezra, he enjoyed his new life in Rosewood, and his visit with his new neighbors, who seemed, more and more, like they were becoming friends. He was at an awkward age where he was at a different stage in life than the Montgomery children but not old enough to have the same struggles and pleasures as the Montgomery parents. But this in-between stage allowed him to become close to both halves of the family, he thought as time passed by. Mike was like a younger brother or nephew that always wanted to tag along or do something with him. Although sometimes annoying, it was often endearing, and Ezra gave into his requests more often than not. As for Aria, the quiet, dark-haired teenager, she was like a cousin or a good friend. She was much more mature than he had originally realized, and much more sophisticated in her literature choices than he had ever thought. There were times when the nine-year age gap was barely noticeable, times when she browsed in the study or journaled as she rocked on her porch swing. But there were also times when the age difference was palpable, like when she asked to read in the tree house or when she told him about his new students.

As summer faded, and in its twilight, new schedules and habits were formed, Aria went over to Ezra's house one last time, to return the last book she had borrowed. She found him sitting in the living room, a bottle of brandy open on the coffee table and a half-drunk glass next to it.

"Are you okay?" she asked him uncertainly as she sat in the easy chair across from him.

"I'm fine," he sighed, giving her a weak smile. She noticed that there was stubble on his chin and his eyes looked anxious.

"This wouldn't have anything to do with school starting tomorrow, would it?" prodded Aria gently. "My mom said it was your first teaching job." She watched as Ezra finished the glass of brandy in one drink and then refilled it.

"Honestly," he sighed looking at her, "I'm terrified."

"Really?" Aria was bewildered and leaned back in her chair in confusion. "Why? You don't have to worry about Mona Vanderwaal following you around or Jenna Marshall hitting you with a volleyball during gym."

Ezra chuckled harshly and took another gulp of his drink. "I wish those were my problems," he answered sincerely. "I'm more worried that no one will listen to me or that somehow I'll mess it all up."

"I didn't know teachers thought that way," responded Aria, giving him a hard look.

"You mom never says any of this?" asked Ezra curiously.

"I mean, she has said sort of things like that," amended Aria. "But she's my mom."

"Moms are people, too," said Ezra between drinks, "and so are teachers."

"I think," began Aria hesitantly before clearing her voice and beginning again. "I think you'll be fine. I like you, and I listen to you. I'm sure everyone else will too." She looked at him thoughtfully for a moment before beginning. "But watch out for Melissa Hastings. She's Spencer's sister. She likes to answer questions nobody can answer. And there's Jason DiLaurentis, he's Spencer's neighbor. He's a big party boy who never does his homework. And Ian Thomas, he's a typical jock. They're all in twelfth grade."

"Anybody else I should know about?" asked Ezra, intrigued by her insight and interested in what she would say next.

Aria thought hard for a moment and then continued. "There's Garrett Reynolds. He's broody and secretive. You never know what he's really thinking."

"How do you know so much?" asked Ezra, topping off his latest glass.

"Rosewood is a small town. There's a lot you can find out just by paying attention." She shrugged. "I wanted to give this back to you," continued Aria handing him a copy of _Of Mice and Men. _"I really enjoyed it. Thanks."

"What did you like about it?" asked Ezra, setting aside his drink and forgetting the bottle of brandy all together. Before he knew it, he and Aria were engrossed in a debate and his worries about the next day were temporarily forgotten.

_June 23, 2007_

_ We have a new neighbor. I didn't know how it would feel when someone moved in next door. I thought it would feel like the final nail in the coffin, like the last little piece I could hold on to was taken away. This feeling in the pit of my stomach, it doesn't feel like that. It feels fluttery, like butterflies. It feels like something is beginning instead of ending. _

_ I miss Grandma and Grandpa Springer so much. They were the only grandparents I ever knew. I can still taste the chocolate pie Grandma used to make and smell the smoke from Grandpa's cigarettes. I wonder if the inside of the house looks different or it still looks the same. _

_ I hope this new person loved Grandma and Grandpa. He is getting their house, and all their things. There are things that Grandma and Grandpa showed me that should be kept safe. I know they never expected to die in that car accident, but it still hurts that they left without saying good-bye. If they could only have said good-bye maybe everything would have been better. Can we say hello if we've never said good-bye? _


	2. Feasting and Forgetting

The school year passed both quickly and slowly all at the same time. Aria was painfully reminded of the fact that she could no longer go next door for an after-school snack or a visit with Grandpa Springer. But that pain, over the course of several months slowly turned to pleasure as she realized that she could go and bother Ezra when she wanted. Her parents seemed not to mind, and Mike was too busy with the drama and coolness of sixth grade to worry about his older sister.

Aria spent the warmer months, August and September, reading and writing and in the tree house. It was old and somewhat rickety, but it felt safe and comfortable. Sometimes Spencer would go up there with her or Hanna or Emily. They were all very close, but it seemed that as they grew, they grew more apart. Spencer was involved in student government and field hockey while Emily became more involved in the swim team and Hanna spent her free time shopping with her mother. More often than not, Aria read in the tree house alone, and she learned to find comfort, rather than pain, in her solitude.

The colder months, October and November, Aria spent curled up on her spot in the living room, doing her homework or reading a book. It was much quieter at Ezra's house than her own, and she liked to sit next to the warmth of the fire he always seemed to have going. When she stayed inside the house, Aria and Ezra often began talking. Sometimes their conversations would be about the weather and the colors of the changing leaves or the chill in the air. Often they talked about the latest book Aria was reading, and Ezra would add his insights and suggestions, clues as to what she should look for as a careful reader. Always they ended up talking about this and that, their days and what they would spend their weekends doing. Aria even heard Ezra laugh.

"That was nice," said Aria tentatively the first time she heard him.

Ezra's smile turned into a thin line as he asked carefully, "What was?"

"Your laugh, I've never heard you laugh before."

"You haven't?" asked Ezra wonderingly.

"Never," said Aria with a small smile. "I think you've been too sad lately."

Ezra frowned at this statement. "Maybe," he considered carefully.

"But you're happier now," continued Aria without skipping a beat. "I think you really like here in Rosewood."

"I like it much better than California," said Ezra, distaste in his voice.

"You never talk about California," replied Aria. "Will you tell me about it? I've always wanted to go there."

Haltingly, Ezra began to tell her about Southern California and the house he had grown up in. There were no autumn leaves and no snow. It was warm all year round, and the people were different, less friendly than they were in Rosewood.

Aria was lulled into his story, closing her book to hear him speak. She listened carefully and pictured the scene in her head. But even as Ezra talked about Hollywood Boulevard and Beverly Hills, she heard that he didn't say one thing about his family. And she began to wonder to wonder to herself about the life he had left behind and the people he was trying to forget.

As October became November and the weeks of November rolled into Thanksgiving, Aria was surprised by how much she was looking forward to their traditional family meal. Her excitement surprised Ella. Thanksgiving had always been a special holiday for the Springers. Mrs. Springer would make an extra turkey for Mr. Springer the day after Thanksgiving, and Aria and the Montgomerys would be invited to partake in that extra holiday meal. Byron suspected that Aria's anticipation with this holiday season had to do with Ezra. He had become close to their family in the few short months he had lived in Rosewood. He had even started to come to weekly dinners at their house. Byron wondered about Ezra. He had made Aria happy, and even Mike perked up around him. But even Byron really didn't know what made a twenty-two year-old boy stay at home all the time, with the exception of work, never going out and never being with people his own age.

Pleased at the prospect of Thanksgiving that year, Aria was surprised when she heard that Ezra wasn't coming to Thanksgiving dinner, that he wouldn't be at home during the Thanksgiving holiday at all. He informed Ella a week before school was out that he was going to California to visit his dad. He politely asked if she and Byron would watch his house for him while he was away.

Mike was disappointed that Ezra wouldn't be there on Thanksgiving Thursday to watch the football game with him. Aria was upset that he hadn't said good-bye. He had left a book for Ella to give to Aria. Aria stared at the cover hostilely, willing it would disappear and make Ezra reappear. She ignored the book on her nightstand almost the entire break, instead journaling and looking outside her bedroom window. The Sunday night before Ezra returned from his trip, out of guilt, and somewhat out of anger, Aria finally picked up the book and began to read. It was Steinbeck's _The Grapes of Wrath_. Soon absorbed in the story, she forgot about her own worries and thought about the misfortunes of some and the blessings of others.

Aria ignored Ezra for the next week. She spent her after-school time shopping with Hanna or working out with Emily. Spencer, not Ezra, helped her with her homework. Her parents didn't comment on her change of habits. Mike, however, did grab some of her newly-purchased bras that Hanna had made her buy, and walked around the house wearing them. The incident turned into a sibling argument that their parents had to mediate and punish them for. It was for that reason that Aria found herself shoveling snow from her driveway on the first day of December instead of out sledding with her friends.

She was so angry at Mike and so absorbed in her work that she didn't hear the crunching of ice and snow underneath booted feet until it was right next to her. Looking up, she saw Ezra with a concerned look on his face.

"Are mad at me, Aria?" he asked without pretense. "You haven't seen me since I got back."

"No," she answered shortly as she continued to shovel snow.

"Are you sure?" he persisted. "You haven't even come over to talk about the book I lent you."

"What's there to talk about?" asked Aria coldly, not looking at him.

"Okay, now I know you're mad at me. What is it?" questioned Ezra. "Is it that I went to California for Thanksgiving? Did you not like _The Grapes of Wrath_? I know you weren't looking forward to my Thanksgiving cooking, so what is it?"

Aria shoveled several big scoops of snow before turning to him. "You didn't say good-bye," she answered tersely.

"I'm sorry," answered Ezra quietly. "I didn't realize how much that would upset you."

Aria stopped shoveling and carefully looked at him in the eyes, he did seem truly regretful. "Promise me you won't do it again," she demanded.

"I promise," swore Ezra solemnly.

At the same moment, Ezra was making this last statement a snowball grazed his ear, and Aria yelled, "Mike!" Another snowball came her way, and the pair heard laughing from the other side of the house.

Aria gestured to Ezra, putting her finger over her lips to silence any exclamation of surprise or warning and carefully made a snowball. After catching a glimpse of a blue jacket she aimed and was rewarded with a pronounced "Oww," from Mike.

Before the threesome realized it, they were involved in a snowball fight, pitted one against the other, their chore forgotten.

Byron and Ella watched from the window as their played with each other and involved Ezra in their games. It brought up memories of when Mike and Aria were younger.

"Ezra's good for them," commented Ella, leaning into her husband.

Byron hugged her closer into his chest. "I guess so, but sometimes I wonder about him."

"What do you mean?" asked Ella, concern tingeing her voice. "Do you think he's not who he says he is or something?"

"I think he is who he says he is, but sometimes he seems like a lost boy, like someone who doesn't know where he's going or where he's been."

"Did you know where you were going when you were twenty-two?" said Ella pointedly.

"No, but…"

"Exactly," interjected Ella. "He's like Aria and Mike; he needs some time to grow up too."

The couple stood there a few moments in quiet contemplation before Ella called Aria, Mike, and Ezra in to warm up. She offered them hot chocolate, and noticed that all was well between Aria and Ezra again.

The last few weeks of the school semester passed by quickly. Afternoons were spent playing in the snow and sledding, either with Mike or her friends. Spencer helped her friends prepare for their final exams, and Emily and Aria found themselves stuck in the library during their lunch break, working on their essay for their English class.

"I have no idea what to write about," exclaimed Emily, ripping her paper in frustration.

Aria sighed glumly. "I'm stuck, too." She eyed Spencer who was writing furiously a few seats down from their table. "Do you want to ask her for help?"

"Not really," replied Emily. She looked a bit frightened at the prospect.

"Me neither," breathed Aria. She sat thoughtfully a moment before continuing. "Do you want to come over to my house after school? Maybe Ezra would help us."

"Do you really think he would?"

"I'm pretty sure," answered Aria confidently. "Especially if we bribe him with some of Mom's cookies."

That afternoon, the girls took some cookies from the cookie jar and took the plate and their backpacks over to Ezra's. He seemed surprised to see them on his doorstep, and Aria realized he must have just gotten home from work; he was still wearing a tie.

"Can you help us with our English essays?" asked Aria hopefully. "We need help, and we would rather come to you instead of Spencer the grammar Nazi. We brought you cookies," she added presented him with the plate.

"Please, Mr. Fitz," pleaded Emily miserably. "They're due tomorrow."

He nodded. "Come on in and make yourselves comfortable. And I will take these," he said grabbing the cookie plate from Aria.

The girls took off their coats and sat down on the sofa while he took the cookies to the kitchen, munching on one while he quickly made his way upstairs to change into more comfortable clothing.

"This is where the Springers use to live?" asked Emily.

"Yup," answered Aria quietly.

"It doesn't seem like he's changed anything."

"He hasn't."

"I wonder why," finished Emily softly. Just as she finished that thought, Ezra came down the stairs in a t-shirt and jeans.

"So what's the problem?"

"We don't know what to write," wailed Aria. "We've tried and we just don't know."

"Well," began Ezra, "What's the topic?"

"We're supposed to write about a time that empowered us to do something special with our lives," said Emily. She fell back into the sofa. "I'm not even sure what that means."

"What about you Aria, how do you feel about it?" he asked.

"Honestly," she answered. "I have no idea what I should do."

"Okay. Well, let's start with Aria. Do you have your journal with you?"

"Yes," she answered, pulling it out of her backpack.

"I want you to read through it, and see if it brings up any kind of memory or if there is entry that inspires you to write about something specific." Aria nodded and did as she was told, intently focused on reading her journal.

"Now, Emily. Can you make a list of people who inspire you, people you think can do anything?" She nodded and did as she was told.

After several moments, Ezra checked up on Aria. "Have you found a journal entry yet?"

She nodded. "August 17, 2007."

"Do you think you can start you're essay now?"

"Yeah, I think so," answered Aria.

"Okay," responded Ezra. "Why don't you work on it in the kitchen while I help Emily?"

Aria nodded her consent and went off to do as Ezra had suggested. She sat in the kitchen table for over an hour, well-absorbed in her work. She forgot the time, until Ezra came to check on her.

"How are you doing?" he asked.

"Good," she answered. "I'm almost done with my work."

"So is Emily," he responded. "Can I read it?"

"I'm not Steinbeck," mumbled Aria, handing it over to him, "but I think its okay."

"I'm sure it's fine," smiled Ezra. He took the sheet of paper and read it over, and then read it over again. Aria's heart fell when she's saw Ezra's smile drop.

"Is it that bad?" she asked, biting her lip in worry.

Ezra shook his head. "Not at all. I think it's very good. You write better than most people my age." He handed her essay back to her.

"Thank you," said Aria sincerely. "That means a lot to me. How's Emily doing?"

"She's just about done, too. She decided to write about the first time her dad went to Afghanistan, right after 9/11."

The girls left half-an hour later, their essays completed. As Aria walked down to her house, she thought about how she had never seen Ezra in teacher-mode before, and she wondered what it would be like to have him in class. A week later, both Aria and Emily had to face the wrath of Spencer, who received an A minus on her essay while both Aria and Emily received As.

Not long after the essay incident, school let out for the Christmas holidays, and just like during the summer months, the Montgomery family spent all their days and evenings together. Occasionally, Mike would go to the gym and play basketball with his friends. Aria found herself at Hanna's more often than not. Both Ella and Byron took their vacation as time when they could both put their feet up, literally. Ezra sat in his house and worked on something, although what for sure, Aria couldn't say.

Christmas 2007, was a white Christmas. Aria opened the curtain in her bedroom window and saw that fresh snow had fallen the night before. She saw that the light was on in Ezra's kitchen, and wondered what it was he did by himself on Christmas morning. Before she realized it, she was persistently being pulled down to the living room by Mike, who was eager to open up his Christmas presents.

Aria got several things that Christmas, the most memorable being her first cell phone. It was a black flip phone and she was really excited about the unexpected gift. She hugged her parents out of sheer delight. After the initial glee of Christmas morning wore off, Aria showered and dressed before helping her mother cook up a Christmas feast for that afternoon. There was gingerbread and apple pie, stuffing, turkey, mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, green beans, corn, and more vegetables than Aria could count.

She was busy putting the biscuits in the oven to realize that Ezra had joined them for Christmas dinner. He found her setting the table, fussing over the table cloths and good china.

"Merry Christmas, Aria," he greeted her.

"Oh," started Aria, startled. "I didn't see you. Merry Christmas, Ezra." She warmly gave him a big hug.

He hugged her back warmly before giving her a small package. "You're Christmas gift," he presented it with a flourish.

Aria giggled and opened the small box. "Ezra," she breathed. "I don't know what to say." Her voice shook with emotion.

"You have something to remember Grandpa by. I thought you should have something to remember Grandma, too."

"But its real diamonds," protested Aria. "Grandpa gave it to her for their fiftieth wedding anniversary."

"I think she would have wanted you to have it," responded Ezra. "Here, let me put it on you." He took the delicate necklace out of the box, and Aria carefully turned that so her back was to him, pulling her long hair out of the way so he could see the clasp. When he was done, she fingered the pendant on the chain, a diamond angel.

"Grandma always said there were angels watching over us," said Aria. "I like to think she's one of those angels now."

"Me, too," answered Ezra. Aria noticed that he, much like her, was close to an emotional breakdown. They were saved by Ella's entrance into the dining room with the turkey, and soon she was followed by Byron and Mike, who let the aroma of the newly cooked food guide them to the table. It was one of the best Christmases Aria had ever had, and one she would remember for a very long time.

_August 17, 2007. _

_ I used to think I would never be okay with anyone other than Grandma and Grandpa living next door. It was _their _house, and not anybody else's. I always thought that's where they belonged, Grandma baking up a storm in the kitchen and Grandpa in his easy chair, reading a book or writing in his journal. Their death, that horrible accident was the hardest thing I have ever had to deal with in my life. It's the kind of thing someone doesn't really recover from. _

_ But then Ezra moved into their house. Grandma used to say that angels were watching over us, and I think that she's one of those angels now. I think she sent Ezra to me and to my family, to heal wounds I didn't even know were bleeding. With Ezra, I don't feel like I have to worry about good-byes. With him, I only have to think about different ways to say hello. He's so nice to me. I think he's the older brother I never had. _

_ Grandma and Grandpa died so suddenly and so unexpectedly that I didn't know what I was doing or what my life meant. I think I was having an existential crisis. But when Ezra moved next door, when he began to sooth the hurt things, I felt something growing stronger inside of me, a will to live life and be happy. The more that time passed, the more I felt I could do anything, and be someone to make Grandma and Grandpa proud. _

_ I hope one day Ezra will realize just how much he changed my life, how he was there when I needed him most. _

\


	3. Loving and Laughing

Spring ushered in a new season of growth. Green grass started to sprout, nourished by water from melted snow. Flowers started bloom, vivid in their reds and blues and yellows. Birds came north again and animals scurried out of hiding. But Aria noticed subtle changes in her own life.

Ezra bought new furniture for his house. Aria watched from her window as the movers brought in a new sofa for the living room. She knew it was time for the change. The pink flowery sofa should not be in the house of a young man, but a part of her heart throbbed at the change. Brown leather was shoved in the front door, and Aria let the curtain fall back into place as the delivery men disappeared into the brick house.

Hanna got a boyfriend. His name was Sean Ackard. As the first of their group of friends to go on a date, she gushed and regaled about the evening, painting a romantic picture of the event. A part of Aria was jealous and she caught herself looking and daydreaming about Noel Khan. And Aria noticed that Emily became quiet at Hanna's descriptions.

Spencer spent more time with her friends and less time at home. She often spent nights with Aria or Hanna or Emily. Her sister's obsession with Ivy League colleges and universities was driving her crazy. Between that and the drama that erupted from Melissa dating Jason, left Spencer drained and exhausted. She came to school with sunglasses and tired eyes, imperfect hair, and her grades, while still excellent, were starting to slip.

And Aria slowly realized that this was the last few months of her eighth grade year, her last few moments of fresh air before high school. She took the time to enjoy her friends and her family, even Mike. She looked forward to girls' night at Hanna's house and Wednesday dinners with Ezra and her family. It was at a Wednesday dinner that another unexpected change emerged, worming its way into Aria's life.

At dinner on March 12, Ella broached the subject of Ezra's social life, unsure if she should pursue the topic at all, she wasn't his mother, but she did care about him.

"Are you okay, Ezra?" she asked him. "It's just that," Ella faltered and looked at her husband.

Byron sighed. "It's just that we notice you don't go out much. Have you met people since you've moved to Rosewood?"

"I've met you guys," answered Ezra with a slight smile. He looked up from his mashed potatoes and gazed at Byron and Ella seriously. "I've met Hardy. He works at the accounting firm over on Main Street. We go out to bars occasionally."

"I know that you're still mourning Elliot and Anne," began Ella again. "And I know there have been a lot of changes in your life in the last year, and I understand if you're not ready to meet anyone special. But you should spend more time with people your own age." She shook her head. "It's not healthy not to."

"I know my staying in all the time can be viewed as a little odd," Ezra shrugged. "I like my life the way it is right now. If someone special happens to fall into it, I wouldn't push her away."

"I'm not your mother," said Ella gently. "But I do worry about you with your family in California."

At the last statement, Ezra slowly set his silverware down on the table, and Aria wondered what her mother had said to cause such a reaction. Looking at both Ella and Byron carefully, he told them, "My mother died when I was young. I don't know what it's like to have one. It's always just been me and my dad."Aria looked at Ezra in surprise, and Mike stopped shoveling food in his mouth at the shock.

"Well," began Ella uncertainly. "Would you mind if I mothered you, a little."

"I would welcome it," answered Ezra honestly. "I think it would be nice to be mothered a bit." Ella smiled in response, and Byron grinned at his wife's happy reaction to the situation.

The rest of dinner was spent in laughter and story-telling. It ended only when Mike asked to watch TV and Aria mentioned the pile of homework waiting for her upstairs. Later that week, Aria asked Ezra his mother's name. Felicity," he told her with a sad smile. "Isn't that ironic?"

A week later, at the next Wednesday dinner, Aria set a place for an extra guest.

"Her name is Simone," Aria whispered to Ezra as she opened the door for him. "Mom really wants you to like her."

Taking her warning into consideration, Ezra was much more charming than his usual self. And much to her credit, Simone really seemed to hit it off with Ezra. They talked about traveling and writing, and Aria discovered that her former baby-sitter was a published author in an online journal.

"You should come to the city to meet my editor," said Simon over a dessert of chocolate pie. "I'm meeting with my editor over drinks next week."

"That sounds great," answered Ezra, genuine excitement evident in his voice. "Why don't you text me the address?" They exchanged phone numbers and information quickly, and Ella's eyes twinkled as she met her husband's over their heads.

"I can't believe Ella didn't introduce us earlier," continued Simone as she finished her pie.

"I'm still getting used to Rosewood," said Ezra vaguely, "I just moved here a few months ago."

"I'm so sorry about your grandparents," exclaimed Simone sincerely. "Everyone loved the Springers, really."

The conversation continued long after dinner as the adults headed into the living room for coffee and drinks. Aria watched them go as she cleaned up and did the dishes before heading upstairs. She checked to make sure Mike was asleep before plopping down on her own bed, picking up her journal and writing about her day before worrying about the next.

A few Fridays later found her lying on her on her back in her backyard, staring up at the stars. It was nearly April and warm enough to be outside with only a light jacket. Aria sighed and breathed in the night air, looking and counting at the celestial formations that danced in her vision. It made her smile.

"What do you think is up there?" asked a voice.

Aria looked up and craned her neck to see who it was that was talking to her. It was Ezra leaning over the fence. She settled down back onto her back and looked up. "I'm not sure," she replied. "Something beautiful, I think."

"There's a legend," started Ezra.

"Yes?" she prompted.

"It's a Greek myth about Andromeda, a princess. To save her city, she was chained to cliff by the sea, so that she could be sacrifice to a terrible monster, the kraken. But Percy, a son of Zeus, the king of the gods, rescued her and saved her people from destruction. The story goes that the gods honored them by making them constellations when they died. They're somewhere up in the stars, frozen in time."

"That's a beautiful story," sighed Aria.

"Is it?" asked Ezra uncertainly. "How do we know she really needed saving, that she couldn't have saved herself and her people on her own?"

"I guess we don't," said Aria. "But it's definitely romantic that Percy saved her." She turned her head to look at him again. "How do you know so much?"

"I went to college." She saw him shrug in the moonlight.

"What do you think is up there?" she asked him.

"I hope something wonderful."

"Me too," she responded.

As March and April passed and May rolled by, Aria saw Ezra and Simone grow closer and closer. She supposed that meeting with Simone's editor went well. Ezra spent more time writing and journaling, always busy doing one or the other when she went over to see him. When he wasn't at home or at work, he was out with Simone, visiting her in the city or she was with him in Rosewood. She made him laugh, Aria noticed. Sometimes she saw them in his house as she looked outside her window.

In first days of June, school let out for the summer, and Aria, Spencer, Emily, and Hanna said good-bye to their junior high. In a few months they would all be together in high school. Their summer plans meant that they would be apart for the next two months. Hanna was spending time with her grandmother in Maryland, and Spencer was spending time in Boston with her family, dropping Melissa off at college and then getting a jump-start on touring some schools herself. Emily's father had been stationed in Texas, and she and Mrs. Fields were going to visit him. Aria was spending the summer at a girls camp, the kind in Baltimore where she would be learning a greater appreciation for the arts. Both of her parents had thought it would be a good idea for Aria to spend some time away from home, to stretch her wings.

There was a first day of summer party at the Khan's the next day. Aria went with her friends. She was more excited about swimming in their pool than anything else. But when she came home that night, Ella noticed she was seemed anxious and worried, forgetful even. Aria didn't want to seem to want to talk about it, so she had Simone talk to her the next time she was Ezra's.

The day before Aria headed to camp, Aria rang Ezra's doorbell, intent on returning his copy of _Romeo and Juliet_.

"Done with it already?" he asked as he let her in.

"Yeah," she answered. "It's been kind of boring these last few days. I was hoping you had something I could borrow while I was at camp."

Ezra nodded. "Wait right here and I'll bring it to you."

As he disappeared, Aria noticed the subtle changes around the house. Not only had the sofa been replaced with a new one, but there was new flat-screen TV, and a few pictures and posters that hadn't remembered from the last time she went to visit. He reappeared with a hardcover book in his hands. "I know your birthday is not for another week, but I thought I should give you your present now. I'm sorry it's not wrapped."

Aria smiled in pleasure. "_Much Ado About Nothing_?" she asked.

"I know how much you enjoyed _Romeo and Juliet._ I thought you could use something with a happier ending."

"Thanks, Ezra," she said, giving him a rare hug. She was gone the next day.

"Is everything alright with Aria?" he asked Simone a few days later, as they were walking from her apartment in Philadelphia to a restaurant a few blocks away. "Something seemed different when she came to see me before she left."

"Her mother asked me to talk to her," Simone admitted. "I guess she thought it would be easier for Aria to talk to me about it."

"What happened?" asked Ezra.

Simone sighed. "She was at an end of the school year party and some kid tried to kiss her. It was her first kiss and she was nervous and scared and apparently it didn't go very well." She paused. "Aria's embarrassed."

"I hope things get better for her," responded Ezra reaching for Simone's hand. "I remember my first kiss." He shuddered. "Her name was Maggie. It did not end well either."

Simone half-smiled under the street lights. "Mine didn't go well either. His name was Ethan and I was about Aria's age."

Ezra stopped walking, turned around, and pulled her close. "Good thing it only gets better," he said leaning in.

"Good thing," mumbled Simone as she met his lips with hers.

Ezra spent the next few months writing and spending time with Simone, taking a few weeks to visit his dad in California. When he came back home, he was tanner and happier, filled with new ideas about his writing and genuinely happy to his girlfriend.

Meanwhile, Aria was in Baltimore, her new friend, Courtney, standing over Aria in the bathroom a box of dye in her hands. "Are you sure about this?" she asked.

"Very," answered Aria.

"Are you sure your parents won't kill me?"

"Positive."

"Okay then," replied Courtney placing a towel over Aria's shoulders. "I need you to lean over the tub for me." Aria did as she was told and Courtney concentrated on her work for a few moments before starting the conversation back up. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because I want to," answered Aria. "It's time for a change. Besides, I'm fourteen." She was home a week later, pink streaks dyed into her hair.

Her parents were fine with it, like she knew she would be. As long as she hadn't gotten anything pierced or tattooed, they were okay with whatever she did to her appearance. Ezra, however, looked at her in shock when he saw her new hairdo.

"Do you like it?" she asked, twirling for him.

"It's different," he replied carefully, letting her into the house.

"I came to say Happy Belated Birthday," she said, extending a package towards him. "What did you do for it? Did Mom make you chocolate-chip pancakes for you like she does for me and Mike?"

"Yes," answered Ezra, setting the package onto his lap. "Your dad, Mike, and I went to a Phillies game and Simone made me dinner." He turned his attention back to the package and began opening it.

"I know it isn't a very manly gift, but I thought it was something that you could use and remind you of Grandma Springer."

Ezra discovered a lump of black wool and opened it, realizing at once that it was a blanket, intricately and time-comsumingly knitted. "It's beautiful, Aria. Thank you."

"You're welcome," she smiled. "Grandma Springer taught me the basics of knitting, and I took a class for it at camp. Who knew an arts camp would have a class on home creations?"

"Did you like your time in Baltimore?"

"I really did." Aria went on to describe the friends she'd made, including her quirky green-haired roommate, Courtney, and some of the things she'd seen. "Well," she concluded. "Mom sent me over here to ask you if you wanted to come over for dinner. Dad's barbecuing. She said to bring Simone if she was going to come over tonight."

Ezra nodded "We'll be there."

That evening was the last day of summer. School started the next day.

_March 12, 2008_

_ Mom asked Ezra why he hasn't been dating anyone. Why did she have to ask him that? It's an embarrassing question for anybody. I think she has a plan in mind. Why else would she ask him. I do think she's genuinely worried about him, but still. There are limits, but apparently my mother doesn't think they apply to her. _

_ On the other hand, it's good to have Ezra be considered part of the family. I think he always has been, ever since he moved next door, but it's still nice to have verbal confirmation. I know Mom loves him like a son otherwise she wouldn't be sending him all those baked goods every week. Dad and Mike like him too, a part of me thinks it's because they like having a way to outnumber me and Mom, boys vs. girls. I think that's Mike's reasoning anyway. There have been lots of changes lately and I think this is one more to add to the list. _


	4. Hurting and Helping

The day after Aria returned home from camp, she entered the world of high school. She wasn't extremely nervous, after all, her mom and Ezra worked. She could always run to one of them in case she got into any serious trouble. But Byron noticed her anxiousness and kissed her on the forehead and wished her a good first day of school. It had helped a little.

She was tugging at her black top as she stood in front of her locker, looking back and forth from the slip of paper in her hand to the number engraved on the tan metal sheet. It seemed to be the right one. She turned the combination lock to the correct numbers, and it magically swung open. She let out a sigh of relief.

"Aria," exclaimed Hanna as she exited the restroom, spotting her friend across the hall. She gave Aria a quick hug.

"Hi, Han," greeted Aria, half-smiling. The familiar face was making her feel better.

"What's your first class?" asked Hanna as the pair began to walk down the hallway.

Aria looked at the sheet of paper in her hand. "English I with Mrs. Welch."

"Me too," squealed Hanna. "I think Spencer and Emily have her first period too."

"That's good," said Aria, looking at the room number plates for the one that said 103. "That means if we ever have trouble in that class, Spencer will be there to save the day."

"True," responded Hanna, laughing as they entered the classroom. "Here we go," she murmured as they entered the classroom together.

Later that evening, Aria was sitting on the back porch swing when Ezra called her from the other side of the fence. "Hey there."

She looked up from her history textbook. Setting it down in the space next to her, she hopped up and walked over to him. "Hi," she answered.

"How did it go?" he asked. "I saw you sprint down my hallway after lunch."

"My first day of school?" she responded. He nodded. "Well, I think, but I was really nervous. Turns out that most of my classes are with people I knew in middle school, though."

"High school is a tough crowd," he replied. "I remember my first day at Rosewood High."

"Did you have lipstick on your teeth after you left the bathroom?" she retorted.

"No." His shoulders shook with silent laughter. "But I did manage to spill coffee on myself before first period had ended." He looked away sheepishly.

She giggled before sobering. "Can I use the tree house tomorrow? It seems like it would be a quiet place to do all this homework my teachers have assigned."

"Sure," shrugged Ezra. "You're welcome to come on over any time. You know that."

"Are you coming to dinner on Wednesday?" continued Aria.

"Of course," responded Ezra with an easy smile. "What's your mom making?"

"Not sure," replied Aria. "Any requests?" she smiled back at him.

"No," said Ezra. "I'm sure whatever you suggest will be great." They spent a few more minutes talking before Aria returned to her homework and Ezra to his grading.

The next month, the Montgomery family, and Aria in particular, settled into a regular routine. Ella and Aria went to school in the morning while Byron took Mike to school. Then Aria and Ella would pick up Mike after school. Mike would get dropped off at the gym to play basketball, and then Aria and Ella would go home. Aria would spent several hours each afternoon at Ezra's house doing her homework or reading, either in the living room or the tree house, depending on whether or not Simon was over. Then Aria would go back home in time to set the table for dinner, where Byron, who had picked Mike up from the gym, was waiting with Ella.

Six weeks into this routine, Aria looked out her window before she went to bed, looking at what was going on at Ezra's house. It seemed like he and Simone were having a fight. Simone had slammed the door behind her and it looked like she was crying as she got into her car and drove away. Ezra left a little after Simone did. Aria heard him come back at two in the morning, his friend Hardy helping him climb up the front steps and into the door of his own house. Aria had never seen Ezra drunk before.

She went over to Ezra's house the next afternoon, after school, brining some cookies her mother had made as a gift. She rang the doorbell, the soft ding sounding much louder than usual to her ears. When Ezra didn't answer, Aria let herself in. She found him lying on his sofa.

"Aria?" he mumbled.

"Yup," she answered cheerily. "I brought cookies."

"Thanks," he grunted. "Come in and put them in the kitchen." She did as she was bid, bringing a glass of fresh water back as she did.

"Here," she said, handing it to him.

"Thanks," he slurred, drinking it. When was done he set it on the table next to him.

"I wanted to make sure you were okay," she answered as he sprawled out on the couch, putting a pillow over his face.

"Can you bring me an aspirin?" he asked, his voice muffled by the pillow. They're in the bathroom cabinet."

She grabbed the bottle in the bathroom and went back into the kitchen to get him a fresh glass of water. She placed both on the coffee table next to him and waited. After a few minutes, he grabbed a couple of aspirin and downed the glass of water.

"Feel better?" she asked, sitting on the easy chair.

"Not really," he groaned. "I haven't gotten that drunk in years."

"Want to tell me about the last time?" she asked.

"No," he ground out. He sighed. "It was about a girl."

"So was last night," she pointed out.

"Ughh," he huffed and put the pillow back over his face.

"What happened?" she asked.

"Simone and I broke up last night," he answered. He tried to sit up in the sofa. Failing, he laid back down.

"Obviously," replied Aria.

He sighed and rubbed his face with his hands. "She wanted to move in. We'd been together six months. She thought it was time."

Aria leaned forward, her elbows in her knees, her hands in her face. "Well?" she prompted.

"I told her I didn't love her."

"Ouch," winced Aria. She sat there for a few minutes before getting up. "Do you need anything else before I leave?"

"A cure for a hangover would be nice," mumbled Ezra.

Aria smirked. "I guess I'll tell Mom you're not coming to dinner tonight."

"Tell her I'll see her at school tomorrow."

"Will do," said Aria heading out the front door.

With Simone gone, Aria was able to spend more time inside the house without encroaching on the couple. She began to read and journal almost obsessively. In much the same way, Ezra began making small changes on the house to make it more his. He often asked Aria, or if she wasn't around Ella her opinion on about certain things. Was the golden yellow color better for the kitchen or this orange one? Should he put hardwood in the living room or new carpeting? Was it okay to put this item or that in storage? Aria gave her opinion often, and found that Ezra usually listened to her, and she began to feel comfortable enough with him that she began asking him for favors that had to do more than just homework or reading.

On October 28, she begged Ezra for a favor. "Please?" she pleaded.

"Remind me why I would want to spend my Halloween with a bunch of teenage girls instead of at a party where I can drink," he deadpanned.

"Please, Ezra. We're fourteen, and I really want to go on the Halloween train. Mom and Dad said if you went with us it would be fine. I really don't want them tagging along. Please. It's just from here to Philadelphia. Mom and Mrs. Fields would pick us up in the city. Please. It's not like you're really going to be going to a party anyway. Please. Please. Please."

He sighed. "What about Spencer's parents and Hanna's? Surely they're not agreeing to this hare-brained scheme?"

"Yes they are," said Aria excitedly. "We can go if you come with us. Please. Please. Please?"

Ezra swallowed. "Won't it be weird? I am a teacher at the high school you go to. Won't that be embarrassing?"

"No," drew out Aria. "This Halloween Train is not just for high school kids. There will be other people there."

Ezra mentally battled with himself. It was a potentially awkward situation to be in. But Aria wanted him to say yes so bad, and it would be a lot less embarrassing to the girls if he went instead of their parents. "Fine," he breathed, resigned. "I'll take you."

"Thank you, Ezra," squealed Aria. She gave him a quick hug before running out the door to tell her parents the good news.

October 31, came and went the Halloween Train going with it. The girls had fun, and except for the slightly uncomfortable moment when a student recognized him in his Gatsby costume, all was well. They even had a bar on the train, although Ezra certainly wasn't going to inform anybody's parents about that slight detail.

It seemed that as soon as Halloween had come and gone, Thanksgiving appeared, snow coming with it. It heaved down with a gusto that nearly blinded Ezra as he walked to the Montgomery house for Thanksgiving dinner.

"It's that bad outside, huh?" asked Byron as he took the younger man's coat.

"If it gets any worse, I'll have to spend the night," joked Ezra. "So what are you up to Mike?" he called into the next room.

Aria found the boys sitting on the sofa watching the Cowboys playing a football game. She smiled to herself before announcing, "Dinner's ready."

The threesome immediately got up and headed towards the dining room. Ezra was the last person to leave the room, and he stopped Aria on his way out. "You're wearing it," he said, inclining his head towards her neck.

"Yes," said Aria, fingering the diamond angel resting on her neck. "It's a special occasion; I thought it deserved to be worn."

"I looks nice," he told her as they entered the dining room.

"Thank you," she answered in response. When they were all seated the food passing began, and so did the laughter and the stories.

In early December, Ella sent Mike to Ezra's house to tell him there was an emergency. Byron had slipped on some ice coming into the house from his car. Could Ezra please take the kids to the hospital while she rushed Byron over there?

Byron was diagnosed with a mild concussion and some head trauma. The doctor had ordered him to spend the night in the hospital under observation. Ella decided to stay with him while Mike and Aria were relegated to spending the night at Ezra's house where they would have quick access to home if they needed anything.

Ezra drove the quiet pair home to get their overnight things and waited for them to walk back over to his house. He fed them pizza and quietly wore Mike out with video games before putting him to bed in one of the extra bedrooms. He was soon asleep. Aria, on the hand, was a different matter. Her mood was hard to gauge. She sat in the living room, her hair cascading down her shoulders, pink highlights and all, staring at the wall.

"Are you okay?" he asked, sitting down next to her.

She turned to look at him. "I'm fine, just restless. I know dad's going to be okay, but…" she let the word hang.

"But," he agreed.

"Let me show you something," he got up from the couch and walked towards the hallway. "Follow me," he called back to her. He knew she was behind him when he heard her slippers shuffling on the hardwood floor.

When he reached the last door on the right of the hallway, he stopped and opened it. It was the study, Grandpa Springer's study, but it was different. The white walls had been repainted a light blue. The mahogany desk faced the window instead of the door. There was a messy stack of papers on it, and Aria noticed new books on the built-in shelves.

"Do you like it?" he asked carefully.

She nodded. "It's a lot more like you now." She looked towards the messy desk. "Do you write a lot?"

"I try to."

"What about?"

"This and that, nothing really important."

"It must be," replied Aria, "if you're writing about it."

"This is for you to borrow," he said handing her book. "It's by James Joyce. _The Dubliners._ It's a collection of short stories about people who are stuck, paralyzed."

She looked down at the book her offered her and then back up at him. "Do you have a favorite story?"

"_The Dead_," he replied easily. "The last one."

She took the book from him. "Thanks," she said before heading upstairs to the guest room. "Good night, Ezra."

Good night, Aria." She slept well that night, better than she had in a long time.

Byron healed quickly and mid-December was suddenly upon them, Christmas vacation in full swing. The second day of the holiday, Ezra got a phone call. His father had had a heart attack. He went to California the same day as the phone call. He didn't even tell Aria good-bye.

He missed Christmas and New Year's, arriving back at home the day after classes started.

"Ezra's dad died a few days after he got to California," Ella informed Aria and Mike a week after Ezra had left.

"So tragic," mourned Byron.

"Does this mean that Ezra's moving to California?" asked Mike taking a bite of his sandwich.

"No, honey. He sold his father's house and put some things in storage. With that and a funeral to plan, he'll be gone longer than he expected," responded Ella.

Byron shook his head. "He's so young not to have any family left."

"We're his family," stated Aria firmly, looking up from her dinner. "We're his family, now." That said, much to the approval of her parents, she turned her attention back to her food.

Aria spotted Ezra back at school in January, but didn't stop by to see him until Saturday morning. She walked over to his house, a plate of gingerbread cookies in her hands. She rang the doorbell, surprised at how long it had taken him to answer. When Ezra finally opened the door, his hair was tousled and he was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

"Aria," he stated, blinking against the brightness of the sun. "What are you doing up this early?"

"It's eleven," she answered pointedly, wondering why he hadn't let her in yet.

"It is?" said Ezra, glancing past the porch at the position of the sun.

"I came bearing gifts," said Aria holding up the plate of cookies. "Mom told me your dad died. That's why you were gone so long in California.

He nodded and took the plate. "Among other reasons."

Aria was about to respond when one of those reasons, wearing nothing but one of Ezra's button down shirts came up behind him. "It's freezing," she exclaimed. Who's this?" she asked Ezra, pushing her dark hair out of her face.

He turned his head to look at her. "This is Aria. She's the girl from next door."

"Oh," the woman responded. "I'm going to make coffee. Do you want some?"

"Sure," he responded. "I'll be in the kitchen in a minute." She kissed him on the cheek before leaving.

Aria watched as she faded into the darkness of the house. "Who's that?" she asked him.

He sighed before answering. "That's Jackie. She was my girlfriend in college and one of the reasons I stayed in California so long." He rubbed his face before he continued. "We reconnected when I went home, and now she's teaching at Hollis like your dad." He shrugged. "It's funny how things work out. She showed up at the funeral when she heard my dad had passed."

She looked at him, waiting a moment before responding. She tried to will the catch in her throat to go away as she responded in a voice so quiet that he almost didn't hear her. "You didn't say good-bye." He shut the door as she trudged across his lawn and back onto her yard.

The next day, Ezra gave Aria a late Christmas present. It was a new leather journal, black leather, and very grown-up. It made her smile.

_January 6, 2009_

_ I think Ezra came back from California changed. I know his dad died, but it's more than that. I guess it doesn't help that I don't like the girl who came home with him. Ezra said her name was Jackie and that she's very nice, but somehow I'm not buying it. How did she mysteriously end up at Hollis after being in California? Ezra looks older and more mature, like the world is weighing down on him. I wonder what it is he's not telling me. I wonder what he's told Mom, if he's told her anything at all. _

_ In other news, Hanna and Sean broke up. And Holden Strauss asked me out on a date this Friday. I've known Holden forever. Who knew he liked me like that? I'm so excited I can barely wait for Friday. I think we're going to this cool arcade in the city. _


	5. Pushing and Pulling

**A/N Thanks for the reviews! **

**For those of you who were wondering, the version might not contain as many chapters as the first, but it will definitely be as long because the chapters themselves will be much longer and contain much more information. I'm not sure exactly how many chapters there will be. **

**Thanks for reading :) Give me some ideas on some specific scenes that you would like to see in this story. I can't promise that I'll be able to put them in or make them work with what I have going on in my head, but I'll see what I can do. **

* * *

Before Aria realized it, an entire year had come and gone, a year of birthday presents and Christmas gifts, Easter egg hunts and Fourth of July barbeques. It was an entire year of mourning and heartache for Hanna, who had broken up with Sean, and dazed happiness for Emily, who began to date Ben. It was the year of Spencer's blossoming friendship with Jason DiLaurentis, and the year Aria and Holden decided to remain friends. All in all, it was a quiet year Aria thought, the year she turned fifteen.

But she began to notice slight things, things she wouldn't have noticed a year ago. She began to become aware of her own changing body, every day as she looked in the mirror she saw something different. Her skinny frame was beginning to fill out, and slight curves were revealed in form-fitting clothing. Her hair grew out of the pink streaks and she replaced them with blue and purple and red before going back to pink highlights. Her nails she painted a different color every week, and her clothing gradually began to favor darker shades. She noticed that her face was changing too. Her lips were becoming fuller and her bone structure more defined. Sometimes, she barely recognized herself in the mirror.

She also became more aware of her friends' changing habits. Spencer, who had spent part of her summer interning at the mayor's office, began to become obsessive about college applications and entrance scores. She threw herself into her schoolwork and afterschool activities. Spencer became taller and leaner, more comfortable in a blazer and loafers than jeans and a t-shirt. Emily, who was a talented swimmer, became even more competitive and dedicated, spending hours working at the pool each day. Like Spencer, she too was interested in college, but for very different reasons. The older she grew, the more aware she became that she would need a swimming scholarship to pay for her education, and she learned to play her part of athlete well. Hanna, who was struggling over her parents' separation and divorce, began losing weight and becoming more aware of herself as someone to care about, dressing up and caring perhaps too much about her appearance. She silently cried out for attention.

Aria also became conscious of Ezra as an adult in her life rather than her neighbor or her friend. He was a teacher at the school she attended, an authoritarian figure, and the age difference between them became increasingly apparent. He spent more time out with Hardy and with Jackie. He seemed happy with Jackie, and it was a relationship that lasted much longer than the one with Simone. Aria didn't wish the couple ill, but she didn't wish them well either. With Jackie around, like with Simon, Aria couldn't go over to Ezra's and read whenever she wanted; she couldn't talk to him whenever she wanted to either, but it was more than that. Jackie stirred up an unpleasant feeling in Aria that Simone hadn't. Aria was glad when they broke up right before Christmas of her sophomore year. It made the holiday much more pleasant.

What made Christmas much less enjoyable was the arguing between the Montgomery parents. Barbed comments and complaints were passed between them liberally, and Aria couldn't remember exactly when they had begun. She could remember her parents fighting about their Halloween plans and then about the stuffing at Thanksgiving. As Christmas vacation approached, the arguments were about Byron becoming a workaholic and Ella being too involved in her art, something she wanted to reconnect with now that her children were older. In early December, Aria had felt confident her parents would work things out, but by New Year's Eve, Aria wasn't so sure.

She was sitting with her parents and Ezra in their living room, watching the ball drop on T.V. Mike had fallen asleep earlier, and Byron had quietly put him in bed as they waited for midnight. And as midnight fell, for the first time in their nineteen-year-marriage, Byron and Ella Montgomery didn't kiss each other. Aria was slightly stunned. It was a tradition. Ezra tried to cover up the moment by kissing both Aria and Ella on the cheek while Byron wished his daughter a happy new year. It was only the next day, after she had recovered from the astonishment of the entire event that Aria wondered why Ezra had spent New Year's Eve in her home instead of out with Hardy, getting drunk. And she would remember that kiss for years, the memory seared into her mind. It was a symbol of so many things.

As the holidays ended, the tension between her parents didn't seem to dissipate and disappear. Instead it became longer and more drawn out, and the Montgomerys became strangers to one another, more distant as the months passed, January to February, February to March, winter into spring. Valentine's Day was unnoticed and unmentioned. Although Ezra still attended Wednesday dinner, he too could sense the feeling of ill-will in the Montgomery household.

It was the morning two days after Spring Break when Aria called Ezra and asked him if he could take her to school. It was too late to call Spencer for a ride, and her mom was sick. She walked to his driveway, where he was waiting for her in his car.

She got in the passenger's seat silently and placed her bag on the floor. Ezra noticed that she was wearing sunglasses and her pink-brown hair was in a messy bun. She sipped coffee from her travel mug the whole way to school. "Is your mom okay?" he asked eventually.

"She'll be fine," replied Aria, her voice monotone.

"Did she manage to find a substitute or should I let Principal Hackett know when we get to school?"

"She got one," replied Aria, looking out the window.

At the red light, Ezra took a moment to look at her. She looked tired and stressed, and she was uncharacteristically close-mouthed. "Are you going to be okay?" he asked. He was pushing it, and he knew it.

"I'll be fine," responded Aria. She took a sip of her coffee before adding, "Eventually." When they reached the school parking lot, Aria quickly jumped out of the car without saying a word.

Ezra puzzled over what had happened, and he even spent a portion of his lunch period looking for Aria in the crowded cafeteria just to check on her. He was concerned. Aria waited for Ezra at the entrance of the school after she had been dismissed for the day. She followed him to his car, ready for the ride home, when he turned to her and opened up his bag.

"It's_ Night__ by Ellie Wiesel_," he said. "I know Mrs. Welch has it on her supplementary reading list. I thought you could use a good read to escape." Aria took the book from him but didn't respond. Ezra sighed and got into his car, steeling himself for the silent drive home. He noticed that she fingered the book during the drive while she looked out the window, distracted.

When he pulled into his driveway, she immediately took off her seatbelt for a quick exit, but Ezra put a hand over hers, stopping her. She looked up at him, her eyes silently questioning.

"Do you want to tell me what's really going on?" he asked gently.

After a moment, she leaned back in her seat, her shoulders slumped in defeat. "Mom and Dad had a big fight last night," she mumbled.

"I know they've been having problems lately," he answered. "But what's wrong with you?" He looked at her, willing her to respond.

She sighed. "I'm scared. I'm worried that my parents are going to split up, that I won't have my family anymore." She looked at him, her eyes filling with tears.

"Oh, Aria," he breathed out. "You know I love your parents as if they were my own, right?" She nodded in response. "Then, please trust me when I say that you're parents are going to be okay."

"You promise?" she asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

"With my whole heart," he answered. She looked up at him with her big hazel eyes before giving him an awkward hug from across the seat.

"Do you mind if I spend some time reading at your house?" she asked. "I don't want to go home right now."

"Sure," he responded. For the rest of school year, Aria developed her routine from an earlier time, when she spent her after-school hours at Ezra's reading and discussing and sometimes journaling. It brought back old memories and created new moments to think about when home no longer felt familiar.

A month later, she was watching _Casablanca_ in her room when she heard yelling downstairs. She paused the movie and walked over to her closed door. As soon as she heard it, the voices became amplified, and she knocked on her brother's door before entering. She found him curled in a ball on his bed, staring at the wall. He seemed to becoming more like their uncle lately, a man who suffered from severe depression. Aria climbed in bed next to him and laid down, murmuring that everything was going to be okay. The pair fell asleep hugging each other; their parents quietly found them like that the next morning.

Although Aria never discovered the reason, her parents seemed to calm down after that particular yelling-match. Their disagreements became much more controlled and took place in private. By Easter, things seemed almost normal. By the end of the school year, Aria had to break the news to her friends.

"We're moving to Iceland for the year," revealed Aria during lunch on the last day of classes. "It's for my dad's sabbatical."

"Why Iceland?" asked Hanna. "There's nothing there but ice, right?" She shivered at the thought.

"I'm not really sure," admitted Aria. "I haven't exactly been paying attention to my dad's research lately," she finished dryly.

"Surely you must know something, a reason their moving you all the way to _Europe_," reasoned Spencer. "Right, Em?"

Emily shrugged. "My dad moves all the time with the military, and my mom and I have always stayed in Rosewood. Maybe Mr. Montgomery just wants his family together."

"What aren't you saying, Aria?" demanded Spencer.

"I'm saying," began Aria with a tired sigh, "that my family has been having a lot of problems lately, and maybe this is my parents' way of fixing it. It not like I _want_ to leave. My whole life is here."

"My family had problems too," answered Hanna. "And my dad didn't move us to an island in the middle of nowhere."

"Maybe their situation is different, Hanna," said Emily. "Not every family or every one is the same."

"I'm going to miss you guys," said Aria wistfully. "No more sleepovers or movie nights. I don't get to take Ez—I mean Mr. Fitz, for American Lit. or talk to you guys about boys."

"When do you leave?" asked Spencer.

"July 20," said Aria, the bell to end the class period ringing as she did so, with shrill finality.

The next seven weeks were spent preparing for the time the Montgomery family would be away. Winter clothing was somehow found and purchased in bulk. Aria found herself with piles of new sweaters and jackets and scarves cluttering up her room with new suitcases stacked against a wall. She found herself compartmentalizing her life into boxes, giving every a level of importance to determine whether it would go with her to Iceland or stay behind. Her parents withdrew her from Rosewood High and enrolled her and Mike in an English school in Reykjavik.

Aria noticed that her parents became much more thoughtful and kinder to one another. Ella took a leave of absence from her position at Rosewood High and Byron cleaned out his office. They seemed much more stable than they had in months, and if for nothing other than that reason, Aria was happy that they were moving. Mike didn't comment on the sudden change in his life, nor did he indicate how he was feeling about it one way or another. But his sister noticed that he spend most of June at the gym playing basketball with his friends almost as if he felt like this was his last moment to play the game itself.

June 11 was celebrated with particular pomp and ceremony. Aria's sixteenth birthday was not something that was going to be overlooked. Her friends threw her a surprise party at Hanna's house. There was some dancing, a lot of crying, and large amounts of cake although the most memorable moment, by far, was when Noel Khan surprised Aria with a wet and sloppy kiss on the lips after she blew out her candles. One of the pictures she had gotten of that night, of her and her friends, along with the new camera Ezra had given here earlier in the day were put on the top of the pile of things to take to Iceland.

Two weeks after her birthday, it was Ezra's. Although the festivities were much quieter, they were no less celebratory. It was his twenty-fifth birthday, and he spent part of the afternoon with the Montgomerys, he spent his night in Philadelphia with Hardy. The next day, Aria looked through her bedroom window and saw him slightly hung-over, stumbling around his living room. Smiling mischievously to herself, she went next door and rang the doorbell multiple times before hiding in the bushes. He answered the door, but when no one appeared, he grumbled and went back into his house. Aria giggled to herself and then sobered. She hadn't really thought before what it would mean to no longer live next door to Ezra.

It was with that thought in mind that she found herself in the tree house in his backyard the day before she was scheduled to leave her home. She had no book and no journal in her hands. Instead she sat there inside and looked out the cut out window until Ezra found her, climbing up the rickety steps nailed to the trunk of the tree and crawling into the small space across from Aria. The house shook slightly with his every movement.

"I remember the first time I climbed in her," said Aria without preamble, looking at the green grass below. "I was ten. I thought for sure that Mike would want to come up here and explore with me, but he didn't. Instead, I played up here by myself. After a while, I began to read up here."

"You miss them," said Ezra, and there was no mistaking who he meant.

"I will always miss Grandma and Grandpa," replied Aria. "They left without saying good-bye." She paused for a moment before looking at Ezra. "I don't think anyone asked you how you felt when we said we were leaving. We've become like family, and family doesn't not say good-bye."

Ezra shrugged. "I'm used to people leaving without a good-bye."

"You lost the Springers, too," said Aria, almost to herself, before adding, "Your dad didn't say good-bye, either."

Ezra cleared his throat. "Actually, he did. He died the day after I got to California, and there were things in his will too that meant good-bye. It was my mom that died suddenly."

"You never did tell me what happened."

"She had a brain aneurism. There was nothing anyone could do about it. She died instantly." Silence engulfed them.

"Is this good-bye?" asked Aria, breaking the silence.

Ezra smiled softly. "I think this is until we meet again." They hugged for a moment, and Aria left and then Ezra behind her.

Ezra drove the Montgomery family to the airport in Philadelphia the next day. In the parking lot, there were more hugs, and even a few tears shed. A whole year of holidays, birthdays, happy moments, and sorrowful events would happen before they saw each other again. Aria sent one more message to her friends before turning her phone off for the long trip ahead. Before she knew it, Aria had left Pennsylvania behind.

_May 13, 2010_

_Mike and I just got the news. We're moving to Iceland in July. For an entire year. I can barely believe it. Mom and Dad have been fighting with each other for cats and dogs like months and now they want to live together in a foreign country together? Either they are really desperate or they really need a change of scenery. I want my family to become close again, but I don't know if I want to leave yet or not. _

_It would be really cool to live in Europe. How many people get to say they've lived in Iceland? But it would mean leaving all of my friends, my entire Rosewood life, behind. I will miss my entire junior year. What will that mean? No homecoming. No prom. It'll mean no waking up in my own bed every morning. _

_I've heard that in Reykjavik, the sun goes down in October and doesn't come up again until March because the city is so far north. What am I supposed do during all that time? What will I tell Hanna, Spencer, and Emily. How will I tell them?_

.


	6. Waiting and Wishing

A state away, while Ezra was pulling into his driveway, Aria was sitting in New York's JFK airport, at gate B-26, waiting for the plane to take them directly to Reykjavik. She shifted uncomfortably in the lightly padded seat and watched as her mother sketched in her pad, her father worked on his tablet, and Mike played on his PSP. After a moment, she decided she would rather spend her time reading than brooding and rummaged through her carry-on bag. Surprised at the sight of the yellow colored book she hadn't packed; she took it out and read the title. _Mrs. Dalloway_ by Virginia Woolf. Ezra must have stuck it in her bag. The worn pages marked with pen were an indication that this book was both well-loved and old. Instantly, Aria knew it must have belonged to the Springers. Immediately, Aria began to read, stopping only when the flight attendant called for boarding and she had to show her passport.

She finished the book during the thirteen hour flight to the Reykjavik International Airport. It was about the moments that made up the days that made up the years in the life of one woman. She took a second to think about the moment she was experiencing at the plane touched down on the European runway, Mike jolted awake from his nap, her mother looked glumly out the window. She wondered what Ezra was doing just then. Aria could not have possibly imagined that Ezra Fitz was recovering from a severe hangover, having gotten dead drunk the night before over something he couldn't name.

* * *

"So everything looks good?" asked Ezra as he looked out the window of his study. "Everything looks great," said the man over the phone. "Everything should be ready by March and then the book will be out by May."

Ezra smiled to himself, "Thanks, Isaac. You've helped me fulfill a childhood dream."

"No problem," said the man chuckling to himself. "But why angels?"

In his mind's eye, Ezra could see flashes of diamond and gold and two different women. "Because my grandmother believed they were always watching over us."

Isaac was quiet for a moment before continuing. "What about your dad's house? It's been nearly two years. Do you want me to put it on the market for you or just keep it as it is?"

Ezra sighed. "You're my lawyer. What do you think?"

"Well, you could keep it as is. Or you could rent it out and make some money off of it. Or you could sell it and be done with it entirely."

"I'm not ready to sell it," said Ezra finally. "See if you can find any renters."

"There are a few other issues we can discuss," continued Isaac hopefully. "There are several things we should probably talk about."

"Not right now, Isaac," answered Ezra tiredly. "We'll talk about them later." A minute later, Ezra hung up his phone, and stared at the September landscape outside his study.

* * *

"Mom, can I go out with Mara?" asked Aria. "It's one of the last times I can see her before her family goes back to the States."

Ella looked up from her cooking to the window outside. "I don't know. It's dark outside and we're still not used to it here."

"Mom," whined Aria. "It's not my fault the sun hasn't been out in three days. We knew that would happen in October. Besides, we've been here almost three months. And Sara is going too."

"What are you girls going to do?"

"We thought we would go that underage club near the center. I'll be back by midnight."

"Aria," exclaimed her mother.

"It's not my fault that the legal drinking age is 16. I promise not to touch any alcohol or talk to strangers," said Aria hopefully.

Ella sighed. Life in Europe was certainly different than life in Rosewood. "If you're dad says yes, then you can go. But don't let anyone else hold your drink. And be back by eleven."

"Thanks, Mom," squealed Aria, giving Ella quick hug. Ella smiled to herself. Mara was the first friend Aria had made in Iceland, and she had a good head on her shoulders. Nothing bad would happen to the girls, she told herself.

* * *

"Mr. Fitz?" Ezra looked up from his work to the unfamiliar voice.

"Yes, Emily. Can I help you?"

She walked over to stand in front of his desk. "I was wondering," she began nervously. "Could you help me with this essay assignment?"

"What's the problem?"

"I just don't understand what I'm supposed to write about."

"_To Kill a Mockingbird_ is about innocence and its loss. How does the mockingbird symbolize that?"

"You mean, besides the title?" asked Emily, puzzled.

"Yeah. You can write about some of the scenes that stood out to you or you could talk about the ending. Or maybe you could write about the liberty the author took by writing as an adult from a child's perspective."

"Do you think I could write about the hypocrisy of the people in the book, and maybe how the child characters see much more than the adults give them credit for?"

"Do you really think that happens?" asked Ezra, intrigued.

"I do," replied Emily softly. "I think children often see things adults miss."

Ezra smiled. "I just think you found the topic for your essay."

"Thanks, Mr. Fitz," said Emily, before she walked out the classroom door.

"You're welcome," he called out to her. He spent the next several minutes looking over the empty sea of desks, wondering when and how he would spend Thanksgiving this year.

* * *

"I like this for Dad," said Aria picking up a dark blue scarf in the small boutique.

"For Christmas?" asked Ella, her eyebrow arched.

Aria shrugged. "Why not? We are in _Ice_land."

Ella sighed. "It could work, but we should get him something else too."

"What about Mike?" asked Aria, rifling through some shirts on the rack.

"Well, what do you think?"

"I noticed at school that he's been getting really into lacrosse lately. Maybe you and Dad could buy some equipment," Aria suggested. "It might make him happy."

"That's an idea," said Ella thoughtfully. "What about you, what do you want for Christmas?"

Aria was silent for a moment before answering. "Will you get me that dress I really like? The black one with the lace you said was too old for me?"

"The one we saw in that window a month ago?" asked Ella in disbelief. "Don't you think that was much too revealing?"

"I'll make it work, so it doesn't show too much. Besides," she continued firmly. "I'm sixteen. I'm not a child anymore."

"I'll think about it," promised Ella.

* * *

Ezra got up on the ladder, and carefully positioned the bucket and his paintbrush as painted the topmost tip of the wall. He had almost gotten it when the doorbell rang. He ignored it and then it rang again. Finally, he heard it open and close.

"Ezra?" called a male voice.

"In here, Hardy," he replied loudly. He continued to focus on the spot on the wall.

"What are you up to, man?" asked Hardy

"I was tired of looking at the wallpaper," said Ezra distractedly. "So I thought I'd paint the dining room."

"Tan?" asked Hardy, looking at the walls.

"It's better than blue flowers," replied Ezra, finishing up the white spot. "What's up?" he asked, climbing down the ladder.

"Why are you painting your dining room instead of out wining and dining someone?"

"If this is about another one of those blind dates you keep setting me up on, you can forget it," said Ezra, leaning against the ladder. "Besides, I wanted to make my snow day productive."

"Do you hear yourself, man?" asked Hardy. "It's January and you got a snow day. Big surprise. You get a free day off of work and you decide to still do work. What is wrong with you? Besides, I was talking about wining and dining me."

Ezra chuckled. "Sure. I'll buy you dinner if you help paint this last wall."

Hardy rolled his eyes. "Fine, but I'm buying steak tonight."

"Don't you always?" asked Ezra moving the ladder down a few feet.

Hardy looked at him with feeling of mock hurt. "It's not like you can't afford it."

"You mean on my pitiful teacher's salary?" asked Ezra as he climbed up the ladder again.

"Sure," harrumphed Hardy.

Ezra shook his head. "Hand me the paint brush."

* * *

"Hey Dad," called Aria, knocking on the door of his small in-home office. "I was thinking about taking Mike down to the pub to get some dinner. Is that okay?"

"You guys don't want to stay home tonight?" asked Byron, swiveling around his desk chair to face his daughter.

Aria smiled softly. "Nah. Besides, I thought you and Mom might want the alone time. It is Valentine's Day."

"And you don't want to do anything else except take care of your brother? Are you sure you don't have plans?"

Aria shrugged. "Who would I have plans with?"  
"What about that boy you met a couple weeks ago at the bookstore. What was his name?"

"His name is Oskar, Dad. Besides, it's not like we're dating or anything." Byron raised his eyebrow in response, and Aria caved. "Fine. He's meeting me and Mike at the pub. I do want Mike to come though. It would make is all less awkward."

Byron smiled and gave her a handful of krónas. "Have fun."

* * *

Ezra was picking up some coffee from The Brew when he saw Spencer in the corner, glumly staring out the window. She seemed…sad. Normally, he wouldn't have approached her, but she just seemed so hopeless that he took his cup of coffee and walked over to her.

"Spencer?" he asked.

"Oh, hi Mr. Fitz," said Spencer, startled out of her thoughts.

Ezra set his coffee down on the table and sat in the easy chair across from her. "Is everything okay?"

"Everything is fine," she answered. "My boyfriend lives upstairs, and I came to see him but he wasn't there right now. I thought I'd wait for him."

Ezra took a moment to sip his coffee before answering. "Is there anything I can help you with?"

Spencer shook her head. "No thanks."

"You know, I'm not a bad guy to talk to."

"It would just feel strange," admitted Spencer.

"It's Spring Break," replied Ezra. "Pretend I'm not you're teacher."

Spencer sighed and turned to him. "What do you do when you find out you had a brother you didn't know you had?"

"Spencer, what happened?" he exclaimed compassionately. They sat there for several hours and she told him. She had just found out that Jason DiLaurentis was her half-brother.

* * *

The lips that met Aria's were hard and insistent, passionate and needy all at the same time. He pulled her closer to him and she responded, four hands roaming around two bodies. But when he pulled her closer to the bed, she pulled away. "No, Oskar."

"I thought we already talked about this," his English was slightly accented in a way that Aria had always found attractive, until now.

"We did. And I had said no." Her voice and tone were firm.

"It has been two months," he whined.

"We already talked about this," repeated Aria, pulling on her shoes.

"Why do you always say no?" asked Oskar, watching as Aria put on her coat.

"Do I need a reason?" demanded Aria.

"I think you do not know why you refuse," he called out to her as she walked out the door.

* * *

"I thought it had been taken care of, Isaac," said Ezra into his cell phone.

"The other thing had. I didn't know this would be a problem," answered Isaac helplessly.

"Does this mean I need to fly out to California?"

"Yes," replied Isaac. "I'm sorry. I know you don't like coming out here."

Ezra sighed. "I suppose it can't be helped."

"What are you going to do about it?"

"I'm going to give it to them."

"But it belongs to your family."

"It belongs to them more. Listen, class is about to start any second. Can I call you back later?"

"No problem," replied Isaac. "But can you at least tell me about when you plan to be here?"

"School ends in a couple of weeks. I'll be there as soon as it lets out."

"Okay, I'll have an art expert come authenticate the painting in the mean time."

"We both know it's not a fake."

"Yes, but we want to make sure the Italians know that too."

* * *

"It's hard to imagine that we'll be leaving here in a few weeks," commented Aria, looking at the piles of things to pack and others to leave behind.

"The year went by in a blink of an eye, didn't it?" responded Ella, wrapping a glass figurine in tissue paper.

"Mom," called Mike from his bedroom. "How are we going to get my lacrosse equipment home?"

"We'll have to mail it there, honey," replied Ella loudly.

Aria quietly put a few more knick knacks into boxes before saying. "I wonder if anything's changed in Rosewood."

"I'm sure they have, sweetheart," answered Ella softly. "Things are constantly changing."

Aria continued to put things in boxes when her mother interrupted her. "Make sure you take those home with you, Aria. They're beautiful."

Aria looked at the photographs in her hands, "They're not of anything buy ice and snow."

"I think they're very good, and you are a very talented photographer."

Aria looked through the pictures in her hand and said thoughtfully. "You know, Ezra's the one who gave me the camera. For my sixteenth birthday."

"I always thought he was a good gift-picker," said Ella practically. "Look at the necklace. You rarely take it off."

Aria fingered the diamond angel on her throat. "It was something to remember Grandma Springer by." She was silent for a moment, before she opened her mouth in shock. "I just remembered, Mom. Tomorrow is Ezra's birthday, and we didn't send him anything."

"I'm sure he understands," said Ella sympathetically.

* * *

Ezra wasn't surprised that his doorbell rang, but he was surprised that is was Hanna who had rung it, especially considering it was the middle of summer vacation.

"Hi, Mr. Fitz," giggled Hanna.

"Hi, Hanna," replied Ezra, puzzled. Suddenly, he looked down at his shirt and remembered that he was covered in pale yellow paint. He had decided to spend a part of his summer updating his house. "Is there something I can do for you?" he asked politely.

Hanna tried to straighten her face before she replied. "I got an email form Aria. She said her family wasn't going to come home straight from Iceland. Her parents decided to spend some time in Italy before coming back. She asked me to make sure you knew."

Ezra nodded. "I know. Byron, I mean Mr. Montgomery, has been emailing me all year. I got the email about Italy last week."

"Are you the person, taking care of their house?" asked Hanna curiously, observing that the yard next door looked freshly mowed.

"Yes."

"Well, Aria said she should be home right before school starts. I thought I should let you know."

"Thanks, Hanna," said Ezra as the girl carefully walked down the porch steps in her very high heels and around the corner.

* * *

"This is your favorite painting, isn't it, Aria?" asked Byron, smiling as he came to sit next his daughter on the wooden bench.

"How did you know?" she asked, genuinely surprised.

"You've only been staring at it for almost an hour."

"Has it really been that long?" said Aria. "I didn't realize."

"So I guess you're not tired of museums like your brother is."

"Never," smiled Aria.

"When your mom said she wanted to come to Italy just to visit her grandmother's house, I thought she was crazy," admitted Byron. "But then when she said she wanted to visit the art museums in Florence too, I think I understood. She wanted reconnect with her past."

"I'm glad we did this," said Aria. "It's been interesting."

"If you're talking about your mom's long lost cousins," answered Byron dryly. "That wasn't interesting. That was insane. Who knew people could be so…emotional," he finished lamely.

Aria giggled. "Yeah, it was pretty intense finding out I had Italian cousins."

Byron smiled. "Well, why do you like this painting so much?"

"I'm not sure," answered Aria. "The woman in it. She just seems so mysterious and her facial expression is so vague. It makes you wonder what she's thinking."

Byron read the plaque next to the portrait. "It says it was in California for over twenty years."

"Yeah, I read that too. A woman named Felicity Fitzgerald donated it to the museum. It had been in her private collection for decades."

"California," mused Byron. "We're going home in a few days. Are you ready?"

"I guess I'll have to be."

* * *

Ezra made sure that everything would be ready for the Montgomerys when they came home. He mowed their lawn, made sure their electricity and water were turned back on, and aired out their house. He was going to pick up the Montgomerys from their airport, too, but someone else, a friend of the family he thought, ended up picking them up in Philadelphia instead. When they got back, he waited for a day before going over.

The house was in disarray and filled with a plethora of boxes and suitcases, and furniture had been moved around to accommodate all the boxes and suitcases. Byron and Ella were genuinely delighted to see him, but he could tell that the timing of his visit was off. It was the day before school started, and Ella and Byron were scrambling to get things ready for their classes tomorrow, and get their home back to the way it was before they left. Neither Mike or Aria were at home. Ella explained that Aria had driven Mike to lacrosse try-outs at the high school. Ezra was slightly shocked, both at the thought of Mike playing high school sports and Aria driving. He stayed long enough to wish Byron and Ella a welcome home, and for Ella to extend an invitation for dinner the following week.

He walked back to his house, aware that something new was beginning, but unaware that his life was about to be turned upside down.

_March 12, 2011 _

_ We got a big box from Rosewood today. Ezra wrote a book! It's called _When Angels Fall_. I can't wait to finish it. I already read the first chapter. It's about Grandma and Grandpa Springer and their lives together, and there's a fictional character in it who reminds me of Ezra. His name is Ian. He comes from a wealthy family and has a heartless father who never recovered from his wife's tragic death in childbirth. He ends up meeting an older couple like the Springers who help him overcome his tragic past. _

_ I miss Ezra. We can't just talk to each other about books anymore. I miss Hanna, and Emily, and Spencer too. I bet they could give me advice on what I should do about Oskar. I like him, but I'm not sure I really like him like that. If we hadn't gone away, I guess I never would have met Oskar, and I think my family would have never healed. I think we are ten times stronger now than we were a year ago. _


	7. Seeing and Seeking

**A/N This part has changed a lot, but I think it makes much more sense now. **

**Reviews=updates :)**

* * *

"Spencer Hastings?" called Ezra, looking down at this attendance sheet.

"Here," she called from the corner of the front row.

"Noel Khan?"

"Present and accounted for," he called from the back.

"Hanna Marin?"

"Right here, Mr. Fitz," said Hanna in the second row.

"Emily Fields?"

"Over here," she replied by the windows.

"Tyler Sperling?"

"Present," he said glumly from the middle of the classroom.

"Holden Strauss?"

"Here," he said from the third row, holding up his hand.

"Jenna Marshall?"

"Right in front of you, Mr. Fitz," she smirked from the first row.

"Mona Vanderwaal?"

"Here, Mr. Fritz," called Mona. The class laughed in response, and Ezra called on a few more people from his roll when he noticed an unexpected name handwritten at the bottom of the computer-generated page. He hadn't seen that person in his classroom at all.

"Aria Montgomery?" he called tentatively.

"Here," she replied clearly from the seat next to Emily, one row over from the windows. Ezra looked up from the sheet and saw her. He stared.

This was not the Aria he remembered. Her pink highlights were gone, and her brown hair had become softer and longer. She had filled out into a womanly figure, and he couldn't help but notice that she was curvy in all the right places. Her lips were full and her hazel eyes seemed larger. He noticed something shining poking out from the top of her ear. She was wearing a low-cut pink tank top and a cheetah-print sweater with her jeans. She was wearing make-up. And he saw that she stared straight back at him.

He cleared his throat. "Welcome back, everybody. I'm Mr. Fitz, your new English teacher. This year, we're going to discuss British fiction." He went on like that for half an hour longer, trying not to stare at Aria as he did so. She had certainly grown up during her time away. She didn't look timid anymore, or afraid. She looked like someone who wouldn't take no for an answer. "Your first homework assignment," he finished as the bell was about to ring "is to write about an experience that defined you. I know I've had most of you in class before, but for those of you who I haven't, this is a chance to show me what you can do." The bell rang, and Ezra noticed she left his classroom without saying good-bye.

"What was it like?" asked Hanna eagerly as her friends gathered around the lunch table with Aria.

"Iceland?" Aria shivered. "Cold. How was everyone here? What did I miss?"

Spencer and Emily exchanged looks. "We'll tell you about it later. So how was Italy?" asked Emily. They spent the hour talking and giggling. For a short time, Aria felt as if she hadn't been away at all.

After school, Aria rang the doorbell, tapping her heels nervously in anticipation.

"Ezra," she cried out happily when she opened the door, immediately giving him a big hug.

"Aria," he said in surprise, hugging her back softly before pushing you away.

"Happy to see me?" she asked with a smile. "Are you going to let me in?" She walked in without waiting for his response. "Oh," she breathed. "It looks so beautiful in here. You did a nice job." The living room had been painted a bold maroon color and complimented the dark furniture nicely. The furniture had been arranged, so that is was facing the fireplace, and Aria noticed that a new painting hung over the mantle. It looked something similar to a print she had seen of a Manet.

"Thank you," managed Ezra as she plopped herself onto the new loveseat to test it.

"Do you have time to talk right now?"asked Aria hopefully. "I didn't get to see you yesterday when you went to visit Mom and Dad."

"You saw me this morning," he said pointedly before he could help himself. "Sorry," he sighed, sitting across from her. "I didn't expect you to be in there."

Aria shrugged. "You are the only person at Rosewood High who teaches twelfth-grade English, and I am in twelfth-grade. It was bound to happen." She kicked of her shoes, heels Ezra noted, and tucked her feet under her.

"I guess I could of that of it that way."

"But it was more than that," guessed Aria. "You were surprised by how I looked too," she prodded.

"You certainly have changed," he agreed.

She shook her hair. "I got rid of the pink about eight months ago." She touched her ear. "I surprised my parents with this the month before we left Iceland. And this," she continued, raising the bottom of her shirt to expose her belly, "was my seventeenth birthday present."

Ezra's mouth hung open slightly at the sight of her belly ring. "I, um," he cleared his throat. "I wasn't expecting that."

"Neither were my friends," said Aria as she lowered down her shirt. "Spencer was about to pass out."

Ezra found a thread of conversation he could hold onto and took it. "Have your friends told you about some of the changes in their own lives?"

Aria sobered. "Hanna told me she was dating this guy, Caleb, I think his name is. Spencer told me about Jason and her boyfriend, Toby. And Emily explained Paige to me." She shook her head. "I'm happy for Emily, I really am. I just didn't expect her to announce she was gay."

"She had a hard time with it," said Ezra. "It was a difficult year for her."

"How was it, when we were away?"

"Things…changed," he finished lamely.

"I read your book," she offered. "I thought it was amazing. I especially loved the ending."

"What did you think of the Ian character?"

"I felt sorry for him. He witnessed so much tragedy as a child."

"I'm glad you liked it," finished Ezra.

"I heard it was on the _New York Times_ Bestseller list for seven weeks straight."

"It makes me kind of glad it was published under a pseudonym. I might have to leave Rosewood High because of it, and I love my teaching job."

"You really like it that much?" asked Aria curiously.

"Most of the time," admitted Ezra.

"And the other times?"

"The other times," he ground out. "I find myself wishing for things I can't have."

Aria looked at him peculiarly at that last statement. "You haven't changed at all."

"Tell me about Iceland and Italy."

Aria spent a few minutes telling him bits and pieces of her year abroad before she felt she had to leave. She said good-bye to him, but later that evening, she thought about that last moment before she had left his house, when they both reached for the doorknob at the same time. There had been a spark of…something. She couldn't name it yet, but she would, in time.

The next morning, Ezra prepared himself for the fact that Aria would be in his first period class. But when he saw what she looked just as beautiful as she did yesterday, the feeling in the pit of his stomach hardened. And the first time she called him Mr. Fitz, it felt like someone had punched it. When she handed in her essay, her fingers brushed his, and he shuddered. He didn't notice that she too shivered in response.

When he read Aria's essay that night, he began to view the girl next door in a different light. And he wasn't sure that was a good thing.

Before Ezra realized it, and entire week had passed, and his life had fallen into a routine again. He noticed that Aria didn't come over nearly as much as before she went away, and Ezra thought she was out with her friends, that she had constructed a different kind of life for herself.

He went over to the Montgomerys for the first Wednesday dinner in over a year. It was the end of August, and the heat was sweltering. He found himself in shorts and a t-shirt as soon as he got home from work. He stayed in the cool air-conditioning of his house until it was time for dinner, the short walk next door causing him to break a sweat.

Mike answered the door, the look on his face indicating that the heat was making him miserable too. He greeted Ella and Byron, and they all sat down at the dinner table while Ella called to Aria that dinner was ready. Aria walked down the stairs in short shorts and a skin-tight tank top. He thought his mouth was about to drop, but he controlled himself, and managed to speak to her politely during dinner. If he ignored the fact that Aria seemed different, he could pretend that it was two years ago and nothing had changed. However, the fact that he helped himself to thirds of Ella's ravioli was proof that he hadn't eaten a home cooked meal in a long time.

Ezra joined Ella and Byron in the living room, where they had their first real conversation in a long time. They talked about his book and what life had been like in Iceland. Ella mentioned the art museums in Florence and her long-lost Italian cousins. Byron discussed his research and the paper he was writing. Ezra laughed and smiled in all the right places and asked all the right questions. He thought everything was going well until Byron brought up the very last subject he wanted to discuss.

"I had never really thought about it before," began Byron cautiously. "But when Aria came home from school last week, we realized that you were going to be her teacher."

"We were wondering if that was going to make you uncomfortable," interjected Ella. "You and Aria have always been close and I know that it can be hard sometimes when those kinds of roles have to change."

"Oh, I don't think it's going to be a problem," said Ezra. "Besides, no else at Rosewood High teaches twelfth grade English," he joked. Ella smiled slightly. "Aria and Mike are always welcome to come over. I've always thought of us as being like family."

The response satisfied Byron for the moment although Ezra thought he had his suspicions about something. He pushed the thought away.

Ezra almost regretted what he had told Byron when Aria knocked on his door late Saturday morning with a towel in one hand and a bag with clothes in the other.

"I was the last one to wake up this morning, and the water got shut off. Apparently the water company didn't understand that we were at home this month too. It'll be turned back on by tonight, but everyone else was able to get a shower this morning but me. Can I borrow yours?"

"You want to borrow my shower?" asked Ezra incredulously.

"Um, yes?" asked Aria hopefully.

Ezra scratched his head. "Okay, sure. Do I need to show you where the guest bathroom is?"

Aria giggled. "I've spent the night here before, remember?" She ran up the stairs without waiting for a response, and a few minutes later, Ezra heard the water turn on. He tried to read in his living room while she showered, unsure of what he was supposed to do in a situation like this. In the end, Aria answered the question for him.

"Ezra?" she squeaked from the top of the stairs.

He looked up. She was wrapped only in her towel. "Yes?" he answered his voice low.

"Did I leave my bag down there?"

He surveyed the room quickly and spotted it next to the stairs. "It's at the bottom of the stairs."

"Can you bring it up to me, please?" she asked.

"Sure," he grunted. She disappeared back into the bathroom as he took the bag upstairs. He knocked on the door and she poked her head out, reaching for the bag with her bare arm. "Thanks," she smiled. He sighed. This was going to be a long year.

Aria watched as Ezra discussed James Joyce with the class. She wasn't really paying attention to what he was saying, but she was paying attention to him instead. She watched as he leaned against his desk and debated the finer points of _The Dead_ with Spencer. She let herself daydream and think about what had happened earlier that morning.

She had woken up early that morning and was writing at her desk when she took a moment to look out her window. Ezra had just woken up and was getting coffee from the kitchen. She noticed he was wearing sleep pants—and no shirt. She had never seen him without a shirt before. She hadn't realized how well-muscled he was or how toned.

"Aria?"

Aria jumped up in her desk, startled. "Yes, Mr. Fitz?" she asked uneasily.

"Did you have something you wanted to share with the class? About _The Dubliners_?"

"Not particularly. No." Ezra continued the rest of class, but Aria couldn't help but notice the way he seemed to look at her.

Two days later, Aria was walking home from the old theater on Main Street when rain hit. She found safety under an awning for a few minutes, but when the rain seemed to be getting harder instead of letting up, she decided to continue with her walk home. She had no jacket or umbrella and she was dripping and miserable two minutes into her continued walk. She was relieved when a familiar silver Camry pulled up and stopped ten feet in front of her. She jumped into the passenger's seat silently and immediately became aware of the tension between the two of them. He said nothing, so neither did she, but she noticed that his hand was only millimeters from hers. She didn't notice where he was going until he parked in an alley.

As soon as he had stopped, Ezra looked at her with searing intensity and Aria stared back at him. Within the space of several seconds, their lips came together furiously, intensely, passionately. They held onto to each other as if by their closeness they were giving each other life. Aria wasn't sure how long they stayed like that, letting out their pent up desires and frustrations. She didn't care, and she suspected that he didn't either. It seemed like hours later although it must have only been a few minutes when he pulled into his driveway. They looked at each other before exiting the car. No words were needed for the message they shared.

_Aria Montgomery_

_Mr. Fitz _

_British Fiction _

_August 21, 2011_

_Defining Moments _

_ I remember the moment my neighbor moved next door. It was the summer of 2007. It was a summer of loss and of pain, impulse and duty, of mourning and healing. I believe that life is made of fleeting moments, and those moments make up hours, and those hours make up the days that make up the years of our lives. There were many moments that summer of 2007 that were definitive. There have been many moments since then that have been noteworthy. But I know without a doubt that I would not be the person I am now without that summer or the man who moved next door. _

_ Two days after he moved in, I snuck over there. I really did not want to meet him. I thought he was going to take the place of people who were very dear to me. I offered him a book, one that really belonged to him because it had belonged to the people who lived in the house before him. He let me break down and cry, comforting me as I sobbed into his shirt. He let me keep the book, and offered me anything else I might want. He was not there to take someone else's place. He was there to be someone else in my life, to offer me comfort and security when I needed it. He not only taught me the value of mourning but also the importance of healing, of mending the places in myself that gushed blood quietly, the places I did not know could bleed. _

_ I am not sure this man knows how much he meant to me or how much he encouraged me. I hope he knows now. Stories do not begin and end simultaneously or abruptly. There is always another beginning and another ending. Lives flow into one another silently and quietly, without notice, the way a stream flows into a river. They touch each other and fill each other up._

_ The man moved next door because he lost someone too, family. He never talks about it, but the tree house in the backyard was built for him, I think, for boyhood days of adventure and happy memories. But he is not a boy anymore, and my days of girlhood are in their twilight. It is another beginning and another ending. Other moments that make up our lives. _


	8. Feeling and Falling

She rang the doorbell softly, tentatively; afraid of what would happen if he answered, afraid of what would happen if he didn't. She covered her surprise well when he opened the door, but his eyes widened at the sight of her. He let her in, and she walked into the entryway. She felt him follow her into the living room. As she sat down on the sofa, she noticed she was breathing heavily and nervously, and he was doing the same.

"So," began Aria.

"So," repeated Ezra.

"What's going on here?" she asked.

"What do you want to be going on?" he answered. She was taken aback by his response.

"Do you really think of me that way?"

"Yes, Aria, I do," replied Ezra honestly. "You're smart and you've traveled. You're well-read and you're beautiful. I'd like to get to know more about you," he breathed. "This new you."

"This new me," repeated Aria. "You mean the me with piercings and mini-skirts?"

"I mean this grown-up you."

Aria contemplated his answer for a moment. "What about Jackie and Simone?"

"What about them?" asked Ezra confusedly.

"I'm not exactly like your ex-girlfriends."

"Of course you're not. You're Aria."

"No, I mean, I'm not from California like Jackie, and I'm not your age like Simone. We can't exactly publicize this relationship." She shrugged. "And I'm your student."

"You were the girl next door first," Ezra paused. "But none of that matters if you don't feel the same way about me."

Aria's eyes grew large. "Don't feel the same way," she echoed. "I thought ogling you in class and making out with you in your car was enough of a clarification."

"You were ogling me in class?" She nodded, and he continued. "I was trying not to look at you. I was afraid I would slip up."

"Oh," she sighed. "How do we make this work, then, Ezra? If you're afraid to look at me then how can we possibly be in a relationship?"

He took her hands in his, "We figure it out along the way."

Aria smiled softly to herself. "Two days ago I was daydreaming about you in class, yesterday, we made out in your car, and today we're talking about _us._" She shook her head. "It's just hard to believe."

"What if we started small and began by hanging out together like we used to?" he asked. "Would that work?"

"That might help," replied Aria. Half-an-hour later she found herself curled up next to Ezra on the couch. She was resting her cheek on his chest and he had her arm over her shoulder as they watched _Roman Holiday_. It felt familiar and comfortable. It felt nice.

"Aria," called Spencer insistently. "Aria."

"Sorry, what Spencer?" said Aria coming out of her daze.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "You've seemed kind of out of it the last couple of weeks."

Aria shrugged and leaned over the lunch table toward her friend. "I've just been readjusting. I guess it's taking longer than I thought."

"I asked you if you were going to Mona's birthday party next week. I think it's a sleepover. Emily is going too, and Hanna is insisting that everyone come."

"Sure, I'll be there," said Aria taking a sip of her coffee. She quietly looked in Ezra's direction, and Spencer turned her attention back to her homework.

"Hey," said Aria, coming in to Ezra's class during his off period.

"Hi," he replied, looking at her from his desk. She sat on the edge of it.

"My friends saw you at the park afterschool yesterday. You were riding your bike. They thought you had nice legs."

He was intrigued. "What did you think?" he asked, genuinely wanting to know her answer.

She looked away. "I was embarrassed they thought you had nice legs."

He looked away too. "I guess you weren't the only one who grew up this last year."

"I guess not," she answered.

"Come over tonight?" he asked hopefully.

Aria shook her head. "Tonight's Mona's birthday sleepover, and I told Hanna I'd come. Sorry."

"Oh," he looked disappointed. "I thought we could eat take out and finish the movie from the other night."

"Tomorrow," she promised. Suddenly, she heard the door open behind her and someone enter; Ezra straightened in his chair.

"So, do you have any more questions about the homework assignment?"

"No, I think I got it. Thank you, Mr. Fitz," she said grabbing the paper he extended to her. "If I need any help, I'll reach out to you." She walked towards the door.

"Mrs. Welch," greeted Ezra. "Is there something I can help you with?"

Aria walked away from Ezra's classroom. The sneaking around and subterfuge often gave her a thrilling feeling, but today, for some reason, it made her feel dirty, and she wasn't sure she liked that.

Aria walked over to Ezra's a few days later and went inside without bothering with the doorbell. "Ezra?" she called when she couldn't find him in his study.

"In here," he called from a back room. She walked down the narrow hallway until she saw him in his laundry room. He was folding clothes.

She leaned against the door frame. "Ezra Fitz doing laundry," snickered Aria, "Who knew?"

"Hey," he responded. "I've been doing my own laundry for years."

"So is this how it is then," she teased. "Teach in the morning, play housewife in the evening?"

He moved his head back and forth. "Maybe," he answered. "I've been living here for four years now? At some point I got tired of taking my things to the dry cleaners."

"Five years," she answered back. "It's been almost five years." She watched as he struggled to fold his sheets. "Here, let me help you with that." She walked over to him and grabbed the sheet, folding it in no time.

"Thanks," he responded.

"You're welcome," she responded leaning to give him a kiss on the cheek, but he moved his face so his mouth met hers. She leaned into it, wrapping her arms around his neck. He moved closer to her wrapping his arms around her waist. As things became more heated, she ran her hands through his hair and he grabbed her by the thighs. She straddled him as he set her down on the washer and her hands roamed over his body.

"We need to talk," she murmured.

"Now?" he mumbled as she began to play with the buttons of his shirt.

"You're right. It can wait," she whispered as her lips captured hers for another kiss. It was a while later when they ended their make-out session, both ending up on the floor of the small laundry room. Aria smoothed her hair as she leaned against the washing machine as Ezra buttoned the top buttons of his shirt, bashfully aware of how far they had gone—and how far they could still go.

"Wow," breathed Aria. "That was intense."

"I know," answered Ezra breathlessly.

"What time is it?" she asked suddenly.

"Almost seven," he said looking at his watch. "Why?"

"I missed dinner," answered Aria. "My parents will be wondering where I am."

"Stay here," offered Ezra, "I'll order us something and we can watch a movie."

"Thanks, but I think I better head home." Aria and Ezra got up from their positions on the floor, Aria smoothing out her skirt as she did so.

"Are you sure you won't stay?" asked Ezra as he walked her to the front door.

"Yeah," she answered softly. "I need to get home." She was halfway out the door when she turned to Ezra and asked. "Hey, Ezra?"

"Yes?"

She gestured toward the living room window. "Did you know that I can see you from my room?"

"You can?"

"Yeah," she answered with a straight face. "You might to want to keep in mind that I already know what you like with your shirt off." He stared back at her in mute surprise.

Aria sat in her mother's classroom before school started, happily eating her yoghurt and discussing a potential shopping date with her mom.

"Hanna wanted me to spend the night at her house in a couple weeks. She says we haven't really hung out since I got back from Greenland." Both women smiled at the last statement.

"That's fine, honey. Just remind me when the date gets closer."

"Okay," said Aria, grabbing her books and throwing her yoghurt in the trashcan, "So Wednesday after school then? Mother-daughter shopping date?"  
"Of course," said Ella turning her attention to her phone. "Oh, Aria?" said Ella as her daughter was about to leave her classroom.

"Yeah?"

"You sent this to me and I think you meant it to someone else."

When Aria saw the message, her face paled. "Mom, I, uh, that was a mistake."

"So who has these amazing eyes?" teased Ella.

"No one," said Aria quickly. "I mean someone, but no one I want to talk about right now. I want to keep it a secret."

"All right," said Ella, slightly amused at her daughter's flustered state. She hit a button. "It's deleted. Like it never happened."

Aria sighed. "Thanks Mom."

"You know I'm here if you ever want to talk about it?" called Ella.

"Yeah, I know," Aria whispered back, an unsettled feeling in the bottom of her stomach.

Several days later, Aria walked over to Ezra's house, not bothering to ring the doorbell. "Ezra?" she called. "Are you here?"

"Hey, Aria," called a familiar voice from the living room.

"Hardy?" she asked when she saw the man's face.

"Long time, no see," greeted Hardy. He surveyed her quickly. "Very long time by the looks of it."

"Nice to see you to, Hardy," replied Aria dryly.

"I got beer," called Ezra as he walked into the kitchen. "Aria," he exclaimed as he handed Hardy his beer. "I didn't know you were coming over today."

"Um, yeah," said Aria, slightly panicked as she glanced towards the sofa. "I thought, you know, you might have wanted to talk to me about that book we're reading in class, but I can see this is a bad time."

"So you're in his class," said Hardy. "I'm sure that's brought up some interesting conversations."

"You have no idea," responded Ezra carefully. He turned his attention back to Aria. "Maybe we could do this another time?"

"Yeah, no problem," agreed Aria looking at him anxiously. "I'll just catch you later. It was nice to see you Hardy."

"Stay, Aria," invited Hardy as he made himself even more comfortable on the couch. "I'm sure Ezra doesn't mind, and I want to hear all about Greenland."

"Iceland," corrected Aria automatically, looking tentatively at Ezra.

"Stay," he echoed uncertainly, and she did.

Later that night, after Aria had gone back to her house, Hardy and Ezra sat on the sofa, lingering over a half-empty box of pizza and a pack of empty beer bottles.

"I get it, Ezra," said Hardy, looking over at his friend, "I really do. She's smart and pretty, and she's grown up a lot. But she's your student."

"I know," sighed Ezra in frustration.

"You're not even going to argue with me? Or deny it?" asked Hardy, raising an eyebrow.

Ezra cradled his head in his hands and looked up at his friend. "You've known both of us for far too long."

"I get it," Hardy repeated. "But she's just a teenager. After this is all over, she'll end up with her diploma and you'll get a pink slip and a jump suit."

"But she's _Aria_," wailed Ezra. He grabbed his nearly empty bottle of beer and took a swig. "She's the girl next door."

"Exactly, man. She's the _girl_ next door." He paused. "Have you told her? Last I heard the Montgomerys didn't know."

"Of course I haven't told her," retorted Ezra. "It took me years to tell you, and that's because Jackie let the cat out of the bag before I did."

"She needs to know," said Hardy, wobbling as he got up from his seat. "They all need to know." He took a moment to straighten himself before continuing. "What would her parents say? About any of it?"

"I don't know," responded Ezra forlornly.

Hanna caught Aria's eyes as the latter girl exited Mr. Fitz's classroom, her look one of pure affection and adoration. Hanna's eyes were questioning and suspicious, gazing at her friend as she leaned against the lockers. Aria looked away the light in her eyes dimming, and Hanna raised her chin, her curiosity piqued.

Ezra leaned into Aria, pulling her closer to him on the couch. She reciprocated, putting her arm around his shoulders and deepened their kiss. She felt his tongue in her mouth and she was giddy with pleasure. Ezra let his roam around her back, under shirt, feeling her bra. Suddenly, they were lying on the couch and she was on top of him. She ran her hands through his hair, and he caressed the small of her back. The doorbell rang, and they ignored it. The doorbell rang again, more insistently.

"Ezra," they heard a male voice faintly call. "It's Byron. I need to talk to you about something." The couple immediately pulled apart and sat up stiffly.

"Crap," whispered Aria. "What are we going to do?"

"Go hide in the study room down the hall," answered Ezra quietly, jumping of the couch and straightening his shirt. She silently complied, rushing down the hall as the doorbell rang for the third time.

Ezra opened the door, hoping his swollen lips didn't give away what he had spent his afternoon doing. "Byron," he welcomed and gestured for the older man to come in.

Aria waited in Ezra's study, shutting the door behind her quietly, so that there was no chance of her father hearing the extra noise. She sighed in relief and leaned against the door for a few minutes before walking over to Ezra's desk against the window.

He had a perfect view of the tree house. Aria smiled. She had half-expected the house to be falling down by now. It must be more than ten years old. It made her wonder when and if Ezra had visited the Springers before her family moved next door. A picture caught her eye on the pale blue wall. It was of Grandma and Grandpa, the portrait Grandma had talked him into taking for their fiftieth wedding anniversary. They looked so happy and in love. Aria found herself wishing that she would end up like them one day. The familiar pit in her stomach returned.

She knew she liked Ezra, really liked him, but he was her teacher and nine years her senior. Did they really have a future together? When she was with him nothing else in the world mattered. It felt so…right. It felt so right and she couldn't help but feeling that it felt so wrong at the same time. Aria swallowed the bile in the back of her throat and pushed her thoughts away.

She sat on Ezra's plush office chair, swiveling around in it to kill the time. Her father and Ezra were taking longer than she thought they would. She stopped swiveling and looked at the papers on the desk. There were handwritten notes and a part of a story it looked like Ezra was working on. There were billing statements, and his journal was lying in the corner. A typed piece of paper caught her eye. Startled, she read it, picking it up and holding it in her hand. Then she read it again to make sure she had understood the wording correctly. She heard the door open and close behind her, but she stood frozen in place.

"Sorry that took so long," said Ezra walking over to her. "Aria," he called when she didn't move. "Aria?"

She turned around slowly, holding up the paper in her hand. "What is this?" she asked slowly, deliberately, intently as if she already knew the answer. He felt his knees go weak. She had found his resignation letter to Rosewood High.

_September 17, 2011_

_ I have plans to go to Ezra's later tonight. He says we're going to watch _Chinatown_. I'm hoping to convince him that _Breakfast at Tiffany's _is a better option. We'll probably get take-out and sit together on the couch. Lately, though, these movie nights have turned into make-out nights. Those are always fun. The next morning, though, afterwards it almost feels like I've done something bad, especially when I have to see him in class and call him Mr. Fitz. I'd rather call him Mr. Fitz when we are doing…other things. I wonder how Ezra feels about it. _

_ So far this secret has been relatively easy to keep from my friends, but sometimes, when Hanna looks at me, I think she suspects. What does _she _think about it? I'm too afraid to ask or find out what she knows. Spencer and Emily, though, I think, don't suspect anything. Homecoming is in a couple of weeks. Holden asked if I wanted to go as friends. Should I say yes? If I do, will that make Ezra feel bad? If I say no, will Holden get suspicious? _


	9. Telling and Tearing

It had been an entire week since Aria had last spoken to Ezra, and he to her. There were terse words exchanged in the classroom if any were exchanged at all. Aria was absent from Wednesday dinner, a commitment Ezra couldn't avoid if he didn't want to look suspicious. Ella said Aria was out with her friends. Ezra was both relieved and disconcerted—relieved because Aria should be spending more time with her peers and disconcerted because he realized that he selfishly wanted her to be spending time with him instead.

Dinner was both comfortable and slightly strained. Mike was anxiously awaiting the end of dinner so he could play a pick-up game of basketball at the park. Before he knew it, Ezra was left alone with both Ella and Byron, drinking a scotch as he sat in front of their fireplace. It was the perfect moment to tell them so many things, to confess what it is he had been hiding, but he didn't say anything. Instead, Ezra latched on to Ella's conversation about things that were happening at Rosewood High and discussed Henry James with Byron. At the bottom of his second glass of scotch, Ezra excused himself, his mood soured. Aria had still not come home.

He found himself at home, in his study, looking over the sheet of paper that had caused the entire mess, contemplating tearing it up and shredding it into little bits and pieces. No, he told himself, he couldn't do that yet, not until he talked to her. Ezra wandered restlessly around his house until he found his bedroom. He lay on his bed fully clothed, not bothering to summon the will to undress. He woke up like that the next morning—red-eyed and tired.

Aria knew why she was upset, and she knew why she wasn't speaking to Ezra, but the words themselves were hard to articulate. After the argument that had ensued when she had found his resignation letter, she stormed out of his house and had not reentered. The entire affair—the relationship itself—had left her feeling sordid and dirty. She and Ezra were illicit and wrong. The age difference alone was too much not to mention that they were student and teacher. She couldn't openly acknowledge she was in a relationship. She couldn't talk about Ezra with her friends. She couldn't tell her parents about the amazing guy she had met. Instead, she worried that they would all find out, that she would be viewed as the slut who couldn't keep it in her pants and Ezra would be sent off somewhere in handcuffs. Besides, Ezra loved his job. Who was she to jeopardize his entire career?

The resignation had just confirmed all the feelings of wrongness, had pushed away what little rightness she had felt. The resignation letter said that she and Ezra were not meant to be together. The resignation letter said that they were at different points in their lives. The resignation letter said Ezra was giving up on his dreams. The resignation letter said that Aria was just in high school and still a little girl. The resignation letter really said that Ezra was ready to move on with his life and that he was grateful for the opportunity Rosewood High had afforded him. It was full of polite tones and flowery words. She wanted to tear it up into tiny pieces.

Aria found herself at the Homecoming dance with Holden. She felt like she was cheating on Ezra. She kept telling herself that they were having a fight, that they hadn't broken up. She told herself that she and Holden were just going as friends. But the pictures her mother took of her dress and her date and the entire debacle of taking a dozen photos as she walked out the door of her house confirmed that one idea that she had wanted to push away and talk herself out of feeling. She and Ezra could never have a normal relationship. Her mother would never take a dozen pictures of them together as he whisked her off to a school dance.

Aria avoided Ezra at the Homecoming dance. He was a chaperone; he had things he needed to be doing besides staring at her. Besides, Spencer, the head of the dance committee, was panicking about pulling the whole thing off. She had sent her friends in various directions to check up on this or that. Recruited into checking the punch bowl at regular intervals, Aria found an excuse not to walk in Ezra's direction. And when Spencer wasn't worrying about the details, Hanna wasn't panicking about Homecoming Queen elections, and Emily wasn't feeling self-conscious about having Paige as her date, Aria roped Holden into dancing with her. She tried to enjoy the moment instead of having the experience escape her. She focused on balancing on her stiletto heels, bouncing to the rhythm of the music, making sure no food got on her dress. But when she saw Ezra leave, she couldn't help but follow him into the hallway, pulled in his direction by some inexplicable force.

"Ezra," she called, walking down the school hallway, her heels loudly clacking on the tile. "Wait."

Ezra stopped and turned around, sighing in frustration. "We can't do this, Aria," he began, a pained expression on his face. "Not here and not now."

"Where are you going?" she demanded.

He looked away, "I thought we could make this work, but seeing you out there on the dance floor with guys your own age. I can't compete with that."

"Nobody's asking you to," she offered quietly, knowing that wasn't quite true.

He shook his head. "We tried to make this work, but I'm your _teacher_, Aria."

"No, you're my _family_, Ezra," she retorted suddenly. "My mom considers you her son. I've known you since I was thirteen."

"But I'm not your family, and I wasn't your teacher then," said Ezra in frustration, agony lacing his voice. "And we weren't this," he gestured to the space between them. "You deserve more than awkward dinners at your parents' house and being holed up in mine." He shrugged. "I'm twenty-six-years-old and you're a high school student."

Aria suddenly stiffened at the insinuation, her body language becoming defensive. "Why did you write that letter?"

"Hardy noticed," he told her definitively. He looked at the space behind her. "Your friends are looking for you." He turned and walked away.

"Aria?" called a male voice behind her.

She took a deep breath, straightened her face, and turned around. "Yes Caleb?"

He looked at her curiously. "Hanna sent me to look for you. She wanted me to make sure you were okay."

"I'm fine, thanks," she said, her voice sounding more confident than she felt. "Let's go back to the gym."

Monday morning, Aria rolled out of bed to look outside her window. She saw, for the first time in as long as she could remember, that Ezra had drawn all the curtains in his house closed. She got back into bed, curled up under the covers, and stared at the wall.

"Aria," called Byron, knocking on the open door of her room. "It's time to go to school."

"I don't feel well," she mumbled, exhaustion etched on her face. "My head hurts and my stomach feels awful."

"Do you think you're coming down with something?" asked Byron worriedly. "Do you need to go to the doctor?"

"I think it'll pass," answered Aria quietly. "But I think I should stay home today."

"Are you sure?" asked Byron, coming over to check her forehead with the back of his hand.

"Yeah. I think I'll be good tomorrow if I can rest today."

"Okay," agreed Byron reluctantly. "I'll go and tell your mother you're taking a sick day."

Aria was in school the next day, albeit reluctantly so. She explained to her friends that she hadn't been feeling well the day before, answering any questions they asked by citing a headache. Spencer looked at her oddly when she stated her excuse, but ended up saying nothing about it.

On a Saturday, Aria found herself stuck at Rosewood High, the last place she really wanted to be. She had been scheduled to take her SAT, but inclement weather and a power outage had postponed the exam. All students were being held at the school until the roads were safer to drive on. Aria couldn't go home anyway; her mom was a proctor for the exam and had to stay at the school until the students could go home. Ezra had to too.

Aria found herself wanting to escape the other people who were waiting for the storm to pass. She and Holden, along with Emily and Paige, left the rest of the students and walked around the school in the dark. The two swimmers went off alone when the notion of going to the pool in the dark suddenly appealed to them. Aria and Holden found themselves in an empty classroom, talking about her time overseas and his martial arts aspirations. It was a comfortable kind of talk that only childhood friends could have.

"Mr. Strauss," called a male voice in the dark, clearing his throat. Aria felt a flashlight shine on her and Holden. It was Ezra. "They want all the students in the library for safety reasons." He turned to Aria and she looked away. "Ms. Montgomery, I need to speak with you."

Holden left the classroom immediately, looking behind him at Aria curiously as he did so.

Aria was furious, "You had no right," she began.

"I have every right," Ezra answered. "I'm the teacher, remember?"

"You know Holden is just a friend," she let out in frustration. "Besides, is that really how you see yourself, as just the teacher?"

"I think we both know the answer to that question," said Ezra carefully.

"No I don't," replied Aria shortly as she picked her book bag. "Not anymore." She walked out of the classroom, her faint outline fading into the darkness. Ezra watched her disappear.

For the third time since she had been home from Iceland, Aria was sleeping over at Hanna's house. It was the perfect night for horror movies and pizza. The leaves were bright and vibrant autumn colors, the wind was whistling, the moon was full, and Mrs. Marin was out-of-town. It was also the first night Aria and Hanna found themselves at a sleepover without Emily or Spencer, and they had a lot of girl talk to catch up on. Aria wanted to know all about Caleb, where he was from, where his family lived, what he was into. They could talk all night if they wanted to.

Aria decided to walk to the Marin house; Hanna only lived two blocks away from her. Aria rang the doorbell expectantly, and found that the Hanna who answered the door was disturbed and upset about something. And she was biting her perfectly manicured nails. That was never a good sign. The two girls sat on the staircase, and Aria was quiet as she waited for her friend to talk.

"Isn't there somewhere else, _someone _else, you should be with tonight?" began Hanna suddenly.

"Hanna, what are you talking about?" asked Aria.

"Oh, come on, Aria," exclaimed Hanna in exasperation. "Just because I'm not Spencer doesn't mean I'm stupid. I know what's been going on with you and Mr. Fitz."

"Nothing is going on," said Aria startled.

"People are starting to notice things," let out Hanna in exasperation. "Caleb is asking me questions."

"Nothing is going on," repeated Aria. "Not anymore."

"Why don't you admit the truth?" asked Hanna. "Is it really that hard?"

"What truth?" echoed Aria hostilely. "That I'm a teenage slut who wants to seduce her teacher? No. It's over." She sunk back into the stairs after letting out frustration, cradling her head in her hands. "Ezra's twenty-six and I'm seventeen," she said quietly. "It would never have worked out."

Hanna was silent for a moment before she began, a look of thoughtful reminiscence on her face. "Do you remember when were in eighth grade, right after Mr. Fitz moved into his house?" Aria nodded miserably. "You used to like to read in that old tree house he has in his backyard. I remember one afternoon when you talked me into going with you. You rang the doorbell and Mr. Fitz let you in. He didn't treat you like you were some kid who was bothering him. You guys talked about books I had never heard of and places that I didn't know existed on a map." Hanna looked at her friend's defeated posture before she continued. "He treated you like an equal, even then. And even though we were only thirteen, I knew that you two were special." Aria looked at her friend, hope dimly lighting up in her eyes. "Go to him," finished Hanna softly.

"It doesn't make me look like I'm some girl who's whoring herself off to an older man?" asked Aria quietly.

Hanna shook her head at her friend's reluctance. "Go," she insisted.

Aria found herself walking back towards her house, her feet reluctantly turning the corner onto her street, propelled by Hanna's words. She looked up and saw that she was near Ezra's front yard. There were lights on in his house, but she couldn't see him through any of the windows. A part of her wanted to go to her own bed and curl up into a ball, and another part of her wanted to run all the way back to Hanna's. But a third part remained quietly angry with Ezra and wanted to confront him. Her fury won.

"Aria?" Ezra answered the door when she rang the bell. He looked disheveled and worn, haggard even.

"Why did you write it?" she asked, her voice dangerously quiet, her mouth enunciating every word slowly.

Ezra craned his neck outside the window and looked onto the quiet, moon-lit street. "Come in?" he asked.

Aria stiffly complied, settling herself on the now-familiar sofa of his living room, her arms crossed as she stared at the Manet-like painting over the fireplace. "Well?" she prompted, not looking at him.

He sighed from his spot next to her. "I didn't write that letter so I could leave you. I thought if I resigned from Rosewood High, we could have a chance to be together." He shrugged. "I thought I would be able to take you to a nice dinner or movie, that my past wouldn't be a problem, that maybe we could tell your parents." He slumped in defeat.

"Ezra," began Aria softly, turning to look at him. "That letter was a symbol of everything that is wrong with us. It made me feel dirty, like I was somehow forcing you into something you didn't want to be in." She exhaled.

Ezra's eyes softened as he looked at her. "Oh, Aria," he exclaimed compassionately. "Don't ever think that," he told her firmly. Suddenly inspired, he dashed down the hallway before quickly returning, a sheet of paper in his hands. He stood in front of her and tore it up, shredding it into miniscule pieces before throwing the remains into the roaring fire.

"Getting rid of it doesn't change anything," said Aria sullenly.

He sat next to her and took her hands in his. "When I'm with you," he began, "everything feels so right. It's like we're meant to be together. I wrote that letter because I wanted to. Because I cared more about you than I did about my job."

Aria looked down at their intertwined hands before looking back up at his eyes. "This is dangerous," she said.

"It is," he agreed. "But I only care about you."

"We are a lot more wrong than we are right," she continued without hesitation.

"Are we?" he asked. "You've been the girl next door for as long as I've lived here."

"One right doesn't cancel out a dozen wrongs," she said, her will wavering.

"Forgive me?" he begged, his voice barely above a whisper. She didn't answer. "Forgive me?" he repeated, leaning in to her. Suddenly she grabbed him the shoulders and pulled him closer to her, her lips on his. How long they were like that, giving into their emotions, neither of them could say.

After they had made up, they looked at each other. No words were necessary to convey the emotions that they felt. She leaned in to kiss him one more time. His hand rested on the small of her back, his other hand pushed a few stray strands of hair away from her eyes. He twisted his arm so that it was holding her as she put her head in his lap. He stroked her hair softly.

"Can we stay like this forever?" she asked.

He chuckled in response and leaned in to kiss her temple. "Are you hungry?" he asked.

She sat up and shook her head. "No. I'm more tired than anything else. I haven't been sleeping well lately," she admitted.

"Do you want to stay here?" he offered.

"My parents think I'm over at Hanna's. They won't know if I spend the night here," she responded slyly, tugging his arm and pulling him off the couch. He complied to her silently request, giving her a look as she led him up the stairs.

When they reached the top, Ezra started hoarsely, "I think you should stay in the guest room."

"I know," responded Aria serenely as she walked to the end of the hallway and into the master bedroom.

"Aria," he sighed, following her as far the doorway.

"I just wanted to see what it looked like," she maintained, her back to him. "I've never been in here before." She took in the sight of the sparse room. It was painted a shade of green that was somewhere between sage and emerald, and quilt covered the bed. There was dresser of dark brown and vanity made of the same wood sporting a large mirror. She could see a door leading into a bathroom and angel figurine on the nightstand. A crocheted black blanket was folded over the foot of the bed.

She walked to the blanket and fingered it. "You kept it all these years," she whispered in awe.

"Of course," he answered softly, "you gave it to me."

She sat on the edge of the bed and continued to look around. "They're here," she stated, "you kept them as a part of this room." She ran her hand over the quilt.

He nodded. "I changed this room the least. I never repainted, and she made the quilt on the bed."

"Grandma did love angels," said Aria, gazing at the figurine.

"She did," smiled Ezra. "They're always watching over us."

Aria looked up and noticed he hadn't moved from his position in the doorway.

"I'm not going to bite," she said.

"I beg to differ," he half-laughed. But he still didn't move. She gave him a pointed look. He sighed. "I can't promise what will happen if I come in there."

She nodded, "I understand."

"Not yet, Aria," he told her gently.

She jumped off the bed and walked towards him. "Good night, Ezra," she said, tiptoeing to kiss him on the cheek.

"Good night," he answered and watched as she entered a room down the hall.

_October 14, 2011_

_ I'm so angry at him. Ezra called on me in class today knowing full well that I didn't want to talk to him. I've missed the last two Wednesday dinners just to avoid him. If I could skip his class, I would. But he just had to ask me about how I felt about that stupid poem. Why?! Is he really that dense? Does he really not get it?_


	10. Prodding and Prying

**A/N Please keep reviewing :)**

* * *

The November air was cool on Aria's face, a relief to her flushed cheeks. The snowflakes were falling softly, the first snow of the season, coating everything in its path with powdery whiteness. Aria sighed and leaned back into the porch swing, rocking slowly, watching carefully. She shivered suddenly and put her gloved hands in her coat pockets. The sun was hidden behind gray clouds. The entire scene was picturesque. It was beautiful.

"What are you doing?" asked a voice, startling Aria out of her thoughts.

"Watching," she smiled, looking over the property line. "Come watch with me."

"In the cold?" asked Ezra skeptically, leaning on the fence, snowflakes clinging to his dark hair.

"Why not? It's beautiful."

After a moment's thought, Ezra opened a gate that allowed access between the two backyards, and walked the thirty steps up the porch to sit next to her.

"When did that happen?" asked Aria, gesturing to the gate.

Ezra shrugged, "While you guys were in Iceland. I thought it might be a good idea if anyone ever wanted to use the tree house again." He glanced over to where it stood as an ancient reminder of childhood. "You're right," he breathed, watching the snow. "It is beautiful."

"While we were in Iceland, I thought I had had my fill of ice and snow," admitted Aria. "But I guess it's different when it's your own home." She sighed happily. "It's like a Pieter Bruegel painting." Aria shifted in her seat, and rested her head on Ezra's shoulder. The pair sat in silence, rocking away together slowly, watching the scene unfold.

"Doesn't it make you curious?" asked Byron, looking out the window from inside his house. "About what's going on between them?"

"Why do you automatically assume there's something going on?" asked Ella from her spot next to him. She watched as her daughter and her daughter's very good friend watched the snow fall.

"Because he's a guy and she's a girl, and they are much too comfortable with each other."

"They've known each other for a very long time," replied Ella turning away from the scene and sitting on the sofa. "They've been friends for just as long."

"Do you not see the way she's resting her head on his shoulder?" asked Byron, panicking.

"Of course I do," said Ella, reaching for her book, "but that doesn't mean we should automatically jump to conclusions."

Byron sighed and joined his wife on the couch. "She's not a little girl anymore."

"She's not," agreed Ella looking down at the pages of her book. She turned the page deliberately.

"He's her teacher. Doesn't that bother you?"

Ella put the book down and looked hard at her husband. "He hasn't always been her teacher, and he won't always be." She lifted the book back up, seemingly engrossed.

"But the age difference," stuttered Byron in disbelief.

Ella lowered her book again. "Did you know that Elliot was twelve years older than Anne?" she asked her husband. She raised her book up again.

"But," sputtered Byron, "What do the Springers have to do with this?"

"Just because there's an age difference doesn't mean that it's wrong," replied Ella, not taking her eyes off the page.

"You're not worried?" asked Byron, anxiety building in his voice.

Ella shut the book closed with a snap and set on her lap. She turned to her husband. "I am a little bit," she told him honestly. "I always thought of Ezra as her brother, as a nephew or son to me. But that doesn't mean she sees him like that."

"She's seventeen," began Byron began.

"But she won't be seventeen forever," said Ella softly.

"But he's her teacher," protested Byron.

"But he won't always be her teacher." Byron was silent at his wife's statement, and Ella picked her book back up.

"What's it like?" asked Spencer as stood next to Aria's locker.

"What?" said Aria startled, she had been looking in the other direction. "I didn't know you were there, Spencer."

"I have been for the last three minutes," said Spencer pointedly. "What's it like?" she repeated.

Aria shut her locker with a thud and walked down the hallway. "What's what like?" she asked Spencer, who was following her.

"What's it like with _him_," said Spencer, pointing her chin in the direction of Mr. Fitz's classroom.

Aria stopped walking and turned to her friend. "Did Hanna tell you?" she hissed.

"Emily did, actually," said Spencer. "She knows a secret relationship with she sees one. Besides you were ignoring me and staring at him just a moment ago," finished Spencer dryly.

"Who else knows?" demanded Aria.

Spencer raised her hands up in a gesture of defense. "No one else, I swear."

Aria sighed in relief and continued walking, stopping only outside the door of Mr. Keegan's classroom. "We'll talk about it later, okay?" said Aria looking at the people around them.

"I'm holding you to that," said Spencer walking into the classroom.

Aria watched the first snow of the year melt and dissolve into nothingness. It gave her a slightly depressed feeling. "So," she began, turning away from the window. "Dinner and a movie?"

Ezra walked into his living room from the kitchen, and sat down on the sofa. Aria joined him, burrowing her head into the hallow space of his chest. "I thought maybe Hardy could join us tonight," he answered.

Aria sat up, "Hardy?" she asked.

"Yes," said Ezra. "He knows."

"How does he know?" demanded Aria.

"He noticed it from the first time you came over here."

"Does he approve?" asked Aria tentatively.

"He doesn't disapprove," returned Ezra carefully. He grabbed her hands and placed them in his lap. "I thought this might be a good way for someone to see us as a couple."

Aria sighed and leaned back into his sighed. "I guess you're right."

"It's a start," promised Ezra hopefully.

Aria was surprised by how pleasant the evening passed. Hardy kept his inappropriate comments to a minimum, and she enjoyed the evening. It felt good to hold Ezra's hand in front of someone else. And she didn't feel like she was doing anything wrong.

"Mom," called Aria, running down the stairs and to the front door. "I'm going over to Ezra's to help him with his Christmas decorations."

"Okay," called Ella from the kitchen. She had been expecting it. At yesterday's Thanksgiving dinner, Ezra had brought up all the decorating he wanted to do and Aria had volunteered to help him.

Ella heard the front door slam close and turned back to her coffee and book. "Where's Mike?" she asked Byron, who was sitting across from her at the kitchen table.

"He went to Gavin's house," replied Byron, taking a sip of coffee. He put his newspaper down loudly and Ella looked at him. "Doesn't it bother you," he began, "that she calls him Ezra?"

Ella sighed in exasperation. "She's called him Ezra since she was thirteen."

"Should she really be going over to her teacher's house?"

"We've been through this Byron," warned Ella. "He's a family friend, and we're not going to sit here and speculate what may or may not be going on over there."

"But shouldn't we," let out Byron, turning a peculiar shade of pink. "For all we know they could be having sex, _unsafe_ sex. She could get pregnant or a disease or he could be pressuring her into something," he ranted.

"For all we know," returned Ella, "she could really be helping him put up his Christmas decorations."

"Help how?" demanded Byron. "She's five feet tall; she can't exactly reach the tallest Christmas tree branches."

"You're reading too much into it," said Ella matter-of-factly.

"Am I?" asked Byron. "Maybe I should have a talk with him."

"Byron," warned his wife.

"What?" he asked innocently.

Aria and Ezra had started to decorate his house, beginning with the artificial tree. They had hung the lights and started to put the ornaments on when other, more physical activities began to take up their time. They lay on the floor of the living room, Ezra's shirt unbuttoned, and Aria down to her undershirt. She rested her head on his outstretched arm and looked up at the tree.

"How did you get so many decorations?" she asked. "I don't remember you having this many."

"When you guys were gone, I got all of Grandma's things out of the attic, and then I had my mom's decorations shipped from California. I thought I would try to make everything as homey as possible."

"I can tell which ones are your mom's," said Aria. "They look so beautiful and expensive. Not exactly what Grandma would have picked out."

"Not at all," replied Ezra quietly.

"Look," said Aria, sitting up. "We broke an ornament."

"Not a big deal," said Ezra, following suite and beginning to button up his shirt. "I'll get something to clean it up."

"When did this start?" asked Emily, hugging her pillow close to her chest. They were all in Spencer's bedroom.

"I think, maybe," began Aria hesitantly, "that it's been going on for years and we never realized it. But the relationship thing, that started after I got back from Iceland."

"What's it like?" asked Hanna from her spot on the bed.

Aria shrugged. "I've known Ezra for ages. It's like when you know you're meant to be with someone."

"Have you told your parents?" said Spencer pointedly.

Aria shuddered. "No."

"Do you think they suspect?" questioned Emily.

"If they knew, we would all know," said Aria definitively.

"When are you going to tell them?" Hanna wanted to know.

"I hadn't thought about it," admitted Aria. "After graduation maybe. We'll see."

Christmas morning, thought Aria as she trudged down the stairs half-asleep, was like all other Christmas mornings. Gifts were exchanged, traditional (and tacky) holiday carols were sung, and she and Mike watched _How the Grinch Stole Christmas_ together. When dinnertime rolled around, Aria helped her mother in the kitchen while Byron and Mike got the table set. And like he had been for the last several years, Ezra joined them for Christmas dinner.

Aria thought it was all going well. Ezra gave everyone their presents, and everyone gave him theirs. Aria received a beautiful oval-shaped locket she thought looked like it was made of solid gold. She gave him a picture she had taken of him one day when he hadn't been paying attention. They sat across from each other on the table, far enough apart that they weren't tempted to hold hands. Ezra talked to Mike about the upcoming Super Bowl, and Aria asked her father about the plans for the rest of Christmas break. After dinner, Aria volunteered to clean up and Ezra offered to help her.

They talked, relaxed conversation, as they picked up dishes and put them in the kitchen, when Mike said the last thing Aria wanted to hear. "Aria and Ezra are standing under the mistletoe," he called out mischievously.

Aria looked up to where she and Ezra had been standing under the doorway from the dining room into the kitchen arguing about who would do the dishes. She cringed and looked back down. He was right.

"Kiss," demanded Mike, taking pleasure in the awkward situation. Aria hated that his voice was loud enough to carry into the living room where her parents had been sitting. "On the lips," he specified, silently daring either Aria or Ezra to defy him.

"Mike, I don't really think that's necessary," began Byron, but he had spoken a moment too late. Ezra had shrugged and leaned into Aria, intending only to give her a peck on the lips. Aria's eyes widened when she saw his intention. She let him kiss her, but perhaps the moment had lasted a tad longer than it should have. Ella cleared her throat. They pulled apart.

"I think, I'm going to do the dishes now," said Aria breathlessly, startled at what had just happened. She recovered quickly and tousled her brother's hair. "You got exactly what you wanted Mike. Happy?" Mike shrugged in response, while Byron's mouth hung open in astonishment.

"I kissed her," said Ezra over the phone. The privacy of his own house ensured that no one would overhear his conversation. "In front of her parents."

"How could you be so stupid?" reprimanded Hardy, his volume rising.

"We were under the mistletoe," explained Ezra. "Mike insisted. I couldn't exactly not do it."

"So you did the stupidest thing you could probably do because a fifteen-year-old kid thought it was a good idea?" questioned Hardy, sarcasm dripping in his voice.

"It wasn't exactly the stupidest thing I could have done," mumbled Ezra.

"I don't know what her parents are going to hate you more for—having a relationship with one of your students or not telling them about the other thing."

Ezra peaked out of his living room window as he answered. "I hope it's the other thing."

"Dude, for your sake, I hope it's the other thing too," replied Hardy.

"Merry Christmas, Hardy," sighed Ezra.

"Merry Christmas, Ezra," said Hardy, hanging up his phone.

"Why did you do that?" demanded Aria, walking into her brother's room unannounced. "You know Ezra's my teacher."

"The mistletoe thing?" asked Mike innocently from his perch on his bed. "Isn't that what you're supposed to do when you stand under the mistletoe?"

"That doesn't mean you had to insist he kiss me on the _lips,_" ground out Aria.

"Isn't that what you wanted?" asked Mike seriously, all traces of playfulness gone. He sat up.

"How long have you known?" said Aria quietly, going to sit next to him on the bed.

Mike was silent for a moment before continuing. "Let's just say you're not the only one who can see into Ezra's house from your window."

"Are you mad?" she asked, bracing herself for an answer. "He is my teacher."

He shook his head. "What you do is your business. And he's been Ezra longer than he's been Mr. Fitz."

"And the age thing?" she probed further.

"Okay, that was a little creepy when I first thought about it," admitted Mike. "But you grew up a lot last year in Iceland, and it's not _that_ big of an age difference is it? If you were twenty and he was twenty-nine it wouldn't be such a big deal. And," he continued, "if it's not going to be a big deal in three years, then why should it matter now?"

Aria sighed in relief and smiled at her brother. "Thanks." She got up to leave but hesitated.

"Yes," encouraged Mike.

She turned to him. "What do you think Mom and Dad will say if they find out?"

"You mean when they find out," retorted Mike. He sighed. "Dad won't be happy because Ezra's your teacher."

"And Mom?"

"She won't be happy you kept such a big secret from her," Mike answered, "but I think she'll be okay with it in the end."

"Merry Christmas, Mike," called Aria as she left his room.

"Merry Christmas, Aria."

"Did you see that?" asked Byron, disbelief in his tone. He was standing in the doorway of the master bathroom as Ella brushed her teeth.

She spit out some toothpaste and rinsed her toothbrush before answering. "They were under the mistletoe, Byron," pointed out Ella, as she wiped her face with a towel. She flicked the lights off in the bathroom and walked passed her husband toward the bed.

"Did you not see that kiss?" asked Byron incredulously.

Ella pulled back the comforter of the bed and propped her pillows up, and her husband did the same. "The Aria who came back from Iceland is not the same one who went away," started Ella. "She so much older now, physically and emotionally."

"Are you talking about that Oskar kid?" asked Byron. "I never understood why Aria broke up with him.

Ella snorted. "Besides the fact that she moving back across an ocean," she replied sarcastically.

"I mean I thought they got along well together."

Ella got into bed and leaned against the headboard. "Things change, Byron. Aria's grown up a lot. For all we know she's not a virgin anymore. And I am not talking about Ezra," she added pointedly.

Bryon was flabbergasted. "Should I talk to her?"

"No. There are some things she should figure out on her own."

Byron joined his wife in bed. "That doesn't change the fact that he's her teacher."

"Do we have to worry about this now?" asked Ella in exasperation. "Can't we let things play out and see how they go?"

Byron sighed. "Do you really want Ezra Fitz as your son-in-law?"

Ella turned out the light and snuggled closer in bed. "Would that be such a bad thing?"

"I suppose it couldn't be the worst thing," admitted Byron into the darkness.

"Good night," said Ella definitively. "Merry Christmas, Byron."

"Merry Christmas, Ella."

_December 26, 2011_

_ Dad keeps staring at me with a funny look on his face. Like he's constipated. Or in pain. It seems like he wants to tell me something, but he keeps his mouth shut. He asked me about school today. And he brought up Oskar. Why on earth would he do that? The only answer must be that he suspects something, probably fueled by the little stunt Mike pulled yesterday with the mistletoe. _

_ If Dad suspects something, then Mom does too. Except she isn't acting funny. I thought it would be reversed. Ezra is Mom's colleague. But maybe it's true what they do say about dads and daughters. A part of me thinks I should be worried. A part of me thinks there is nothing to worry about. _


	11. Sprining and Sprouting

**Sorry it has taken so long for the update. My life has been crazy lately. With the semester ending, updates should become more regular. **

**Thanks for following! Thanks for reviewing!**

**Warning: This chapter contains adult themes and elements (although nothing too explicit).**

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Rosewood in the spring was beautiful. The snow gradually melted leaving puddles of glassy water that reflected puffy white clouds. The roses began to bloom in a riot of colors and the sun came out of hiding. It was a time for playing, when children could go and run around in their backyards. It was a time of warmth, when sweaters and jackets were peeled off and scattered until the time when they would be picked up and put back into storage until next year. For Aria, it was a time of happiness, her last stretch of childhood, the final few months of high school. For Ezra, spring was a time of decisions and choices about where he would be next spring and with whom.

Aria sat next to Ezra on the sofa in his living room, her hands stroking the nape of his neck before roaming down his back before they settled on his chest, positioned so that they could easily take off his shirt or push him away, which she would do if things became too heated. Ezra was running fingers through her hair, and he inhaled the scent of her soft skin while his tongue slid between her teeth. Aria took a moment to nibble on his earlobe before pushing him—down onto the sofa and not away like she knew she should.

She straddled him, taking off her outer shirt to reveal a white lace camisole that transparently revealed the red bra she wore underneath. He sucked his breath in sharply before letting it out in a groan. Aria sighed in pleasure, and she bent down to kiss him, his hands roughly grabbing the back of her head to pull her closer. The couple's breathing became heavier, and their panting was audible as she eased him out of his faded t-shirt, throwing it haphazardly across the room. Her fingers felt his naked chest, beginning to glisten with sweat as his hands, resting on her buttocks, pushed her harder down on him. She shivered with excitement. "More, Ezra," Aria begged into his ear.

He wanted to give in. He really did. He could feel her simultaneously tugging at his pants and pulling at her camisole. It would be so easy to just…but he shouldn't, and he knew he shouldn't. She was the one who knew when too much was going too far. But she hadn't stopped him yet. It would be so easy to just let her keep going the way she was. It was obvious she was enjoying herself. It was a Saturday afternoon. No one was looking for them. It would be a short trip to the bedroom, if they even went to the bedroom at all. It would feel so…No, he couldn't.

With great difficulty, Ezra disengaged his lips from Aria's and propped himself up on the couch. Aria gently fell to the seat by his feet, her breathing heavy and expectant, her eyes confused and disappointed. He looked around for his shirt, and bent down to pick it up before throwing it back on. Sweat clung to his upper lip.

"We didn't have to stop," said Aria suggestively. "I wasn't ready to."

"Yes, we did," sighed Ezra, his breathing becoming more regular. He sat up straighter. "We agreed not to go too far until you were out of Rosewood High."

"But it feels so good," protested Aria, "and it isn't fair to make you wait. We made that promise at New Year's. That was over two months ago." She looked up at him expectantly.

"It would hurt me more if we didn't wait," said Ezra. "In the long run it would."

"So it's back to this again," said Aria, looking for where over shirt was. She found it on the coffee table and grabbed it, straightening her posture as she put it back on.

"We will always be back to this, Aria. It always comes back to this," replied Ezra.

"But I've known you so much longer than that. You're more than just my teacher, Ezra," protested Aria, her voice becoming high-pitched and frantic. "Besides, I'm the only girl in my class who is still a virgin."

"You know why we need to wait," protested Ezra. "_You _agreed to wait. Besides, you're not eighteen yet, and that could cause…problems," he let out delicately.

Aria shook her hair out in a huff, combing it through with her fingers. "You know how this makes me feel," she exclaimed, her voice becoming softer.

"Oh, Aria," he pulled her closer and wrapped her in his arms. "No matter what anyone else thinks, we know the truth. Nothing is ever going to change that. _Nothing_."

She relaxed and snuggled closer to him, letting her head rest on his chest. "And if the world falls apart at the seams?"

"Then," he sighed, breathing in the scent of her, "we will still have each other."

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"Do you think Anne and Captain Wentworth should be together? Do you think that the fact that they come from different social backgrounds should prohibit them from being together?" Ezra's voice boomed throughout the classroom, waving a copy of _Persuasion _in his hands. "Austen wrote this as a commentary on society's obsession with wealth and position. What do you guys think about it?" He looked up and saw Spencer raising her hand.

"Spencer?" he prompted.

She cleared her throat. "Austen might have written the novel to comment on the gentry's obsession with wealth and status, but she makes fun of it. Anne and Wentworth are obviously perfect for each other, and Austen believes they should be together even if the characters in her novel don't."

"Which brings up the point of what happened before the events in the novel takes place. What did happen between Anne and Wentworth? Mona?" he called out expectantly.

The girl looked up from where she had been texting on her phone. "Anne and Wentworth. That's the book, right?" In a sudden flash of inspiration she pointed a perfectly manicured finger in Ezra's direction. "Didn't he propose to her or something?"

"Yes, he proposed to her," said Ezra, hiding a smile. "Does anyone know what she said?"

"Lady Russell told her not to marry him because he was poor and she is the daughter of a baronet," answered Holden from his seat in the back row.

"Good. What about now? What has changed since he proposed to her the first time?"

"He got rich killing people," called out Noel.

"He got rich in the war, and what happened to Anne?"

"She got poorer," said Hanna. She wrinkled her nose. "And old."

"She was very much less attractive than what she had been when Wentworth proposed," added Jenna. "She was a less valuable commodity on the marriage market."

"Okay. So if all that changed was wealth and social status, why would he be a good catch now? She is still the daughter of a baronet, and he is still as sailor."

The class was silent for a moment, before a voice spoke up. "Because now she realizes how much she truly loves him, and she doesn't care what her family thinks anymore." It was Aria.

"Does she?" asked Ezra. "She obviously cared enough the first time. All Lady Russell had to tell her the first time around was that it wasn't a good idea."

"But she was young, then," explained Aria. "She knows her heart better now. She's more mature."

"Why would he want her this time around? Jenna just pointed out that she's less valuable now on the marriage market."

"Because he loves her too, even if sometimes he thinks he doesn't." Aria looked at him pointedly and his breathing grew heavier, the moment seemed to stretch out for eternity. For a moment, it was just him and her.

"Which brings us back to the original question," broke in Ezra, ending the moment. "Should Anne and Wentworth be together?"

"Yes," said Emily clearly from the seat next to Aria, eying her friend. "Two people who love each other that much should be together, even if silly things like wealth and social status stand in their way."

"I—" the bell rang, cutting into Ezra's sentence. His students rapidly filed out of their seats and through the door, grabbing their things as they did so. "Don't forget to finish the book for next class," he called behind them.

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"Aria."

Aria looked up from her dinner. "Yes, Mom?"

"You've been staring out into space for five minutes. Is everything okay?" Ella looked at her daughter curiously.

"Everything's fine," answered Aria easily as she turned her attention back to her lasagna. "I was just thinking about something Spencer said today, about college."

"You did turn all those applications in the fall, didn't you?" asked Byron, taking a gulp of his water.

"Of course she did, Dad," said Mike, snickering from where he sat on the other side of his sister. "Don't you remember all that drama about getting Ezra to write her a letter of recommendation?"

"Ezra wrote you a letter of recommendation?" Byron stared at Aria, his hooded eyes gleaming with concern and accusation. "I'm not sure that was appropriate."

"Why?" called out Aria, suddenly, her voice rising. "Why was it so wrong?"

"Well," Byron squirmed in his seat slightly. "I know he's your teacher, but there are other things that should prevent from writing one in good conscious."

"I'm a good student," spouted Aria. "I'm the best writer in my class. I haven't had Mrs. Welch in class for over two years, and it would be extremely difficult for my teacher in Iceland to write me one halfway across the world." Her chin lifted in challenge.

"He is much more than your teacher," said Byron firmly. "He's been your neighbor for years, and he's practically a member of this family. Family members shouldn't write letters of recommendation."

Aria's voice, which had been steadily rising since the conversation began, suddenly dropped to an almost-whisper. "He's so much more than that." She got up and left the table, her heeled shoes loudly clicking against the hardwood of the stairs.

Silence reigned at the dinner table until Mike broke in. "Do you think she was really upset about college?"

"I think she was in her own way," responded Ella. "It means leaving everything she knows behind, and the people she loves behind, too." She gave her husband a knowing look.

Bryon sighed. "I think that Aria just needs some time alone."

Ella took a sip of her water and looked back down at her lasagna. "We both know ignoring the problem won't make it go away. She needs to be able to sprout her wings. She needs to be able to fly. Not talking about the real issues…" she looked at her husband. "Not talking about how she feels is just going to leave her grounded."

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Ezra watched the sleeping girl in his arms. Her head rested in his lap, pillowed under hands. Her ear looked up at him, and pushed her hair away so he could see it more clearly. She breathed in and out evenly.

Although the March weather was unusually warm, a fire roared in the stone fireplace, heating up the house that seemed tinged with cold lately. Ezra continued to stroke the girl's hair, and looked out the window that was covered up with curtains, obscuring his view. The girl moaned softly, and turned his attention back to her.

"Tell me," she mumbled softly. "Tell me you love me, Ezra." Aria groaned again before continuing. "I need to hear the words."

Ezra was silent for a moment as Aria stilled in his arms. "I love you, Aria. I think I always have," he finished thoughtfully.

She didn't respond, and her breathing was deep and even. He realized that she had been talking in her sleep. "Nothing else, matters," he continued, even knowing she was asleep. "I'm in love with _you_, and I _will_ fight for you."

She moaned in response before uneasily flipping over in his arms, a bad dream disturbing her rest. He covered Aria up with a warm red blanket, and continued to softly stroke her hair.

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"I'm going to tell her parents," said Ezra, taking a large gulp of beer, and then looking back at Hardy, who sitting next to him at the bar.

"Tell them what? It sounds like they already suspected the one thing." Hardy glanced at his friend quizzically before taking a sip of his own drink.

"The other thing. I'm going to tell them the other thing." Ezra raised his glass again, this time downing his beer in one fell swoop before signaling the bartender for another.

"Ella Montgomery has been like a mother to me. She deserves to know."

"And Aria doesn't?" asked Hardy.

"I want to protect her from it for as long as possible."

Hardy shrugged. "Why protect her? Why not just tell her. Most girlfriends would be thrilled."

The bartender placed another beer in front of Ezra, and he took a large gulp before answering his friend. "Because it ruined my life. It hurt me in so many ways. I don't want it to hurt her or even touch her."

Hardy sighed and fingered his drink before looking at Ezra, who was well on his way to getting drunk in the over-crowded bar. "Ezra, I'm not a philosophical kind of guy, but you have touched Aria and her life. That means this other thing has touched her too, whether you like it or not."

"It's just," Ezra downed his second beer and wiped his mouth before continuing "It's just it would be easier to tell her parents than to tell her. They might be more understanding."

"And she wouldn't?"

Ezra ignored his friend and signaled the bartender for a third beer.

Hardy took a sip of his own drink before he continued his thought. "I haven't been the most supportive of you and Aria. I think it's one of the stupidest, most irresponsible things you've ever done. And I say that knowing you dated Jackie Molina. But if she is truly the person you love, and if she really does love you, then she will understand. And if she is the person you're supposed to be with, then she won't run away from it or from you." Hardy finished his beer, patted Ezra on the back, and left the bar, leaving Ezra alone with his thoughts and his demons.

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"Aria?" asked Ezra. He was sitting at the wooden desk in his study, looking from the pile of papers he was working on.

"Hmm," she responded lazily, looking down at her book. She was sitting comfortably in the leather chair Ezra kept in his office, her legs swung over one of the arms, the other arm supporting her back. He noticed she was reading _The Bell_ by Iris Murdoch, the book he had just assigned for class.

"If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?"

Aria lowered her book and looked at him thoughtfully. "Like if I suddenly found out I was a billionaire, and could go anywhere I wanted?"

Ezra hesitated. "I mean, like if you suddenly sprouted wings and could fly somewhere, anywhere in the world, someplace you've always wanted to go."

"Well," she said slowly, "There is this painting I saw in Florence when we were in Italy. It was of a woman, a Renaissance lady, dressed in this beautiful blue gown staring out a window of this palatial mansion. The plaque in the museum said that it been in California for decades in this woman's private collection. I looked up the painting online after we got home from Europe, just because I couldn't get it out of my head, you know? The museum's website said that the painting was part of a series and that there was a companion piece. It's probably lost now, but if I could go anywhere in the world, if I could suddenly sprout wings or fly or teleport somewhere, I'd like to see that other painting. It would have been nice to know what she was looking at." Aria sighed. "I know it's not much of an answer, and it probably doesn't make sense—"

"No," cut in Ezra, "it makes perfect sense."

Aria smiled brightly at his understanding. "I love you, you know?" she said softly from across the room.

"I know," he replied, his eyes dark pools of wonder and amazement.

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"Why are you springing this on us now?" asked Byron, his tone curious but without astonishment. He shifted in his seat, the leather of his living room couch crackling.

"You are my family._ Aria _is my family. It's time I stopped hiding."

Ella glanced out of her living room window and to the house next door thoughtfully. "We never would have known. You could have kept quiet."

"I could have," agreed Ezra. "I could have gone on teaching at Rosewood High for thirty years without anyone knowing that I wrote a novel or about all this, but that would have felt too much like lying."

"What are you going to do about it?" asked Ella gently, patting Ezra's knee.

"I had wanted to give it all away. I talked to Isaac—my lawyer—about it, but the way everything is set up through," Ezra swallowed, "through the businesses and the real estate and the way the will was written. I can't. I'm stuck with it."

"No, sweetheart," said Ella in her most motherly-sounding voice. "About Aria. What are you going to do about it?"

"You know," said Ezra matter-of-factly.

Ella looked away and then back at him. "I know enough to suspect. I know enough to know that you have been her best friend for years."

"That's not to say we approve," said Byron honestly. "But things aren't…things aren't going to stay the way they are forever. Aria is talking about college, and I'm sure you're going to write another book."

"And June is right around the corner where the, the _delicacy _of our situation will be put behind us," finished Ezra somewhat harshly.

"Something like that," said Byron.

"What do you want me to do?" asked Ezra helplessly.

"Tell her what you told us, and hold off until graduation. I don't want Aria to think she finished her senior year off well because she had help. I want her to look back later and know she did it by herself."

Ezra winced at the implication. "And you?" he asked Ella.

She smiled softly. "There are worst things in the world than having Ezra Fitzgerald as my daughter's boyfriend."

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Ezra was startled when he heard his bedroom door open suddenly, the door opening with a bang against the opposite wall. It was late on a Saturday night, and Ezra had nearly fallen asleep reading _Ulysses. _But the sight that greeted jolted him until he was wide awake—and nervous.

Aria was wearing stilettos, heels even higher than her normally heeled shoes. She wore short shorts. Something, Ezra thought practically, was not at all warm with the storm that raged outside. She wore a black leather jacket over her shirt. Her make-up and hair were perfectly made-up and coiffed. She was breathtaking.

"I've been thinking," said Aria, walking towards him while unzipping her jacket, revealing nothing underneath but a lacy black bra. She kicked off her shoes. Ezra groaned in pleasure. "I've been thinking, that we've spent too much time thinking," she climbed onto the bed, crawling toward him on all fours, "don't you?" she leaned into him, her breath tickling his cheek.

He captured her lip in his, and pulled her closer. He wanted more of her, and he wanted more of her now. They broke apart for a minute so they could reposition themselves. "Yeah," he answered as he did so, nodding his head vigorously. He threw his book onto his coffee table as she shimmied out of her shorts, revealing panties that matched her bra, and straddled him. She pinned him against the headboard, and he let her. He was too busy feeling the bare flesh of her legs. He breasts pressed against his chest and she slid her tongue into his mouth. She tasted delicious. She ran her fingers through his hair and down across his shoulders until she grabbed his hands in hers, positioning them until they were on her breasts and buttocks.

"Please, Ezra," she begged. "I need this. Please." She kissed him again, without giving him time to respond, and suddenly she rolled over until he was on top of her, the bedding a mess of sheets and comforter. "Let's not think about it," she whispered. "Let's just do it." She tried to pull off his shirt.

"Aria, we can't," he told her, his resolve disappearing with every second that she touched him. "There are things you don't know, things you need to know before we do this."

"I know that I love you," she said, successfully pulling his shirt off. "That's all I need to know."

"Aria," he held her until she was still in his arms. They were both panting. "I need to talk to you."

"Please don't bring up what I know you're going to bring up," she whispered. "I don't want to think about that part of our lives right now."

"Aria," he struggled to find the words. "What I need to tell you. It's that, it's that my last name isn't Fitz. It's Fitzgerald."

_March 14, 2012_

_Rosewood in the spring is beautiful. The snow gradually melts, leaving puddles of glassy water reflecting puffy white clouds. The roses begin to bloom in a riot of colors and the sun comes out of hiding. It's time for playing, when children can go and run around in their backyards. It is a time of warmth, when sweaters and jackets are peeled off and scattered until the time when they are picked up and put back into storage until next year. For me, it is a time of happiness and a time of decisions. College is coming. I applied to several schools. NYU, Columbia, UCLA, U of Penn, and Hollis of course. What does that mean for me and Ezra? What does that mean for me? What does that mean for Ezra? _


	12. Asking and Admitting

**A/N Please Review! reviews=motivation=updates**

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Aria looked outside her bedroom window into the house next door. Pushing aside the curtain with her hand, she leaned against the glass and stared. The grass was getting greener, the flowers were beginning to bloom, and the sun was coming out after an entire night of howling winds and endless rain. She sighed and rested her forehead against the windowpane. The red brick of the house next door seemed unusually bright, and the blue trim cheery. That house used to be such a pleasant place.

_ "Fitzgerald?" echoed Aria dumbly. She sat up in the bed, startled, as if she were just coming to realize how scantily dressed she was. She pulled the sheets up around her and edged away from Ezra. "What do you mean Fitzgerald? Why are you telling me this now?" Her voice was laced with fear, and Ezra winced when he heard it. _

_ "I truncate my name, my family's name. It makes it easier in the real world to live anonymously, not reminding people everything that my family has."_

_ "What do you mean Fitzgerald?" she repeated, stunned. "Fitzgerald endowment for the arts? Fitzgerald preservation fund? Fitzgerald scholarship award?"_

_ He nodded in shame. "Guilty."_

_ Panic alighted in Aria's eyes. "Your family doesn't have money. Your family has _money._" _

_ "I don't have family left anymore. Except for you and yours." He looked at her hopefully. _

_ "I'm sorry. I have to go." Aria shoved the sheets off of her and picked her shorts up off the floor. Ezra watched as she zipped up her jacket and then put her shoes on. _

_ "Aria, don't leave," he begged. "Please. Don't go."_

_ She turned to him, and he could tell that her fear had become anger. "Don't. I came here willing to give you everything, everything. I didn't care that it made me feel like I was some cheap tramp who wanted to sleep with her teacher. I didn't care that tomorrow morning I was going to feel used and dirty," she paused and then continued, enunciating every word, "because I love you." She shook her head. "Now," she swallowed and looked away. "You were the one person who had never lied to me, until now."_

_ "Aria," he called out softly, longingly. _

_ "No, Ezra," she said firmly, her ire brewing beneath the surface. "You don't get to do that anymore." She turned around and walked away, into the torrential storm that blew outside, extremely underdressed and unprepared for the rain and wind that would engulf her as soon as she set foot outside the door. He wanted to grab her and hold her close. Instead, he watched as she walked away from him and into the night. _

Aria watched as her next door neighbor walked into his backyard to survey the damage. Tree branches were everywhere, and so were pieces of smooth wood and nails. The tree house her neighbor's grandfather had built had been destroyed in the storm. It was laying in pieces, shattered by natural forces.

Aria let the curtain fall back into place, and crawled into her bed. She had spent most of her night crying, and it seemed she would spend most of her day burrowed under her bedcovers. He had deceived her. he had lied to her, and not for a little while either. He had lied to her for years…and he had known what he was doing.

"Sweetheart?" called Ella, knocking on the door before entering her daughter's room. She surveyed the scene before her and sighed softly. She sat on the edge of Aria's bed. "He told you didn't he?" Aria flipped around and faced the wall in response. Ella stroked her back. "He didn't want to tell you. He didn't want the harshness and struggles of his world to touch you." Aria was silent in response. "He loves you, you know that." Ella paused for a moment. "You should give him a chance to explain himself." Ella sighed again before getting up and walking to the door. She turned in the doorway and faced her daughter. "Don't give up on him just yet," she said before walking into the hallway.

Aria lied still in her bed for several moments pondering her mother's words. Then, she grabbed the cell phone on her nightstand and called someone. The phone rang several times, but no one answered. Aria left a message. "Hi. It's Aria. I know we haven't talked in a while, but I would like to get together. Maybe for a cup of coffee or something? Call me. Bye."

She fingered the phone in her hands for a moment before putting it back on the nightstand, where a picture of her and Ezra sat. She put the picture face down with a thud and pulled her comforter over her head in mourning.

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"Aria, are you okay?" asked Emily. She peered into her friends face, half-covered with sunglasses, noting her unstyled hair and lips void of lipstick.

"I'll be fine, Em," answered Aria woodenly, rifling through her locker.

"It doesn't have to do with, well, you know," Emily gestured in the direction of Ezra's classroom.

"It might," said Aria matter-of-factly, closing her locker with a bang. The pair started walking down the hall together as Aria took a sip of her coffee.

Emily sighed. "What happened?"

Aria shook her head. "I can't tell you, not yet. I need some time to process." She paused in consideration. "He lied to me," she finally said.

"Oh, Aria," exclaimed Emily.

"Yeah," was the tiny girl's lackluster response.

Emily was silent for a moment as they continued down the hallway, their pace slow and unrushed.

"Maya, you didn't know her. She went to school here while you were in Iceland. Maya was my first girlfriend. She lied to me too. It got her into trouble, especially when my mom discovered weed in her backpack."

"What happened?" asked Aria, her interest piqued.

"My mom told her parents and she got shipped off to military school."

"I'm so sorry, Em," said Aria sympathetically.

Emily furrowed her eyebrows and looked down at her friend. "The point is, Ar, that we don't stop loving people because they do bad things. We love them in spite of that."

The girls walked into their first period classroom, and Aria sat down in her customary spot, one row over from the windows, Emily next to her, and watched as Ezra began class.

He cleared his throat. "So," he began. "We've been reading Murdoch's _The Bell. _It has a lot of misplaced passion among the characters, people loving people they shouldn't, men and women marrying each other when they are not at all compatible. And in the middle of all of this is Toby. In a sense, this novel is about a coming-of-age story of Toby, and even Dora. But what does that mean coming-of-age?" Ezra wrote the phrase on the board, the chalk making a squeaking sound as he underlined it. "You guys are about Toby's age. You're thinking about going to college or not going to college, what do with the rest of your lives. I want you to spend the class period writing about the coming-of-age in your own lives. Was there a big event that happened? Is it something that occurred gradually? You have until the bell rings, and you must turn in what you have written."

The class got out sheets of notebook paper and their pens and pencils and started writing, but Aria watched as she looked at Ezra. He stared straight back at her.

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"Thanks for meeting me," said Aria, sliding into her seat at The Brew. She tried to smile, but she couldn't.

"I must say," answered Simone, "that I was surprised to hear from you. It's been a long time."

"It has," said Aria. "Did you hear about Iceland?"

"Yeah, my mom told me," replied Simone politely. She eyed Aria. "You sure have grown up."

"Oh," answered Aria awkwardly. "I guess I have. I'm nearly eighteen. How about you? What have you been up to lately?"

Simone's face broke into a grin. "I'm engaged," she said proudly, displaying her left hand for Aria to see.

"Wow," said Aria, "that's quite the rock."

"Isn't it?" gushed Simone. "His name is Wren. He's a doctor."

"Sounds wonderful."

"It is." Simone took a sip of her coffee. "But I'm guessing that you didn't ask me here to hear about my fiancé."

"Actually," Aria let out a breath. "This is awkward. I wanted to ask you about Ezra. I know I have no right to ask you about your ex-boyfriend. But he has put me, I mean my family, in a delicate situation."

"Okay, sure," Simone shrugged. "What do you want to know?"

"Is Ezra a good guy?"

Simone studied Aria for a while, and the girl cowered slightly under her scrutiny. "He did not treat me as well as he could have, but I can say without a doubt that Ezra Fitz is a good man."

Aria nodded slightly. "What makes you say that?"

"Do you know why Ezra and I broke up?" returned Simone curiously. "You were always going over there in those days to read in the tree house or talk to him about books. You and Ezra had seemed really close."

Aria hesitated. "I remember him telling…he told me that he didn't love you. He got drunk because of it, you know, and Ezra never gets drunk."

"He never loved me," said Simone matter-of-factly. "After we had dated for a while, I thought that we should move in together. He said he could never do that with someone he truly didn't love."

"What do you mean?" asked Aria, fingering her necklace, Mrs. Springer's diamond angel.

"Ezra loves selectively, but when he does love, he loves hard, and he loves well. There is nothing he wouldn't do for someone he loves, including keeping things from them for their own good."

Aria's head shot up. "Why? Did he keep something from you?"

Simone shook her head. "No I think he was lying to himself about who he really had feelings for."

"Who do you think he loved?"

Simone looked at Aria carefully in the eye, but made no reply.

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The Montgomery family sat silently and uneasily at the table. They quietly chewed their food and swallowed, taking sips of their drinks every now and then. Forks and knives dinged on porcelain plates. Mike's chair squeaked as he shifted uncomfortably in it. Ella and Byron eyed each other from across the table before Ella took a large gulp of her wine. Byron sighed and took another bite of his potatoes. Mike glanced at the adults around the table before his gaze lingered on his sister; he wondered why everyone was so quiet and tense when Ezra was over for dinner. Ezra dinners were usually fun and festive occasions. Aria and Ezra eyed each other uneasily. Aria's gaze was challenging and Ezra's guilty.

"What's going on?" asked Mike in a way that expected to receive an answer.

"Did anyone tell Mike?" returned Aria loudly, her voice edgy and high-pitched. She took a drink before setting it down on the table with a thud, water sloshing over the edges of the glass.

"Tell me what?" demanded Mike looking around the table.

"Ezra?" prompted Aria harshly.

Ezra glanced at either end of the table, at Ella and Byron, before clearing his throat. "I'm sorry we haven't told you yet, Mike, but, um, I told your parents and Aria." Ezra let out a deep breath before continuing. "My last name isn't Fitz it's Fitzgerald."

"Oh, okay," said Mike, shrugging his shoulders and turning back to his food. Aria harrumphed in the seat next to him.

Ezra shook his head helplessly before continuing. "Have you ever heard of the San Diego Lions?"

"The football team, of course," Mike nodded his head energetically.

"How about? Sunshine Park," Ezra continued.

"The baseball stadium? Who hasn't?" said Mike. He set his fork down and turned his full attention to Ezra.

"Okay. What about _Pretty Little Liars_, the movie that was made a couple of years ago?"

"Aria has only made me watch it half-a-dozen times," replied Mike, comprehension slowly building in his eyes.

"Well, the thing is Mike, well uh, my family owns the Lions and built Sunshine Park. My family also owns the production company that made _Pretty Little Liars_."

"Does this mean you're rich?" asked Mike, his eyes wide.

"Um, I guess you could say that," answered Ezra carefully. "My dad's family has a lot of money."

"This is so cool, man," exclaimed Mike. "Can we go watch a Lions game? Can we sit in the box seats? Can I meet the players?"

"Calm down, Mike," admonished Ella. "Ezra is still the same Ezra he was yesterday."

Confusion clouded Mike's eyes. "Wait, why didn't you tell us this sooner?"

Ezra sighed, a guilty sigh in Aria's judgment. "Because it's a really long story, and because it was time," finished Ezra simply.

"Oh," said Mike, returning to his food. "I thought you were going to say it had something to do with your dad dying, and us coming back from Iceland, and you getting together with Aria."

"It does," Ezra reassured him. "But there's more to it."

"Well, that went well," said Byron, the tension disappearing from his shoulders.

"It did," said Aria. "Really well. Much better than when he told me." She looked at her parents. "Did he tell either of you about it?" When she was met with silence, she continued without missing a beat. "No? Okay, why don't I tell you? Instead of telling me, telling us, years ago or even a few months ago, he waits. He waits until I am half-naked and begging to get into his pants. In the middle of all that, then he decides to tell me. He's been going on for months about how I'm not a whore who wants to hook up with an older man or a teenage slut who's dating her teacher." She scoffed. "It couldn't have gone any worse. He lied to us for years. And made me feel even more like a prostitute in the process." Aria got up from the table and marched up the stairs, slamming her door shut.

"She's angry," said Mike.

"She has a right to be," replied Ezra. "I behaved badly." He looked at Ella and Byron who silently sitting in shock. "I should go."

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There was a knock on the door. "Aria?"

"Go away, Dad. I don't feel like talking right now." She was laying on her bed, facing the wall.

"We should talk," said Byron, coming into the bedroom. He pulled out her desk chair and sat on it.

"Don't worry," replied Aria. "Ezra and I haven't slept together. I'm still a virgin."

"I'll let your mother have that talk with you," said Byron squirming uncomfortably.

"If you want to know why I'm mad at him, I already told you why."

"Actually, I want to talk to you about Felicity Springer."

Aria didn't move, but Byron could tell he had said something unexpected. "What about her?"

"I met her, you know, Ezra's mom. She grew up in the house next door. She visited her parents several times after she moved to California, when you were little. You don't remember her, but she was a beautiful woman. She had Ezra's dark hair and blue eyes. She died when he was twelve."

"How?" asked Aria, her back to Byron.

"She had Ezra when she was really young, when she and Ezra's father were just out of college. It's true that the Fitzgerald family had money, but they didn't like Felicity, and they cut him off for a little while after he married her. They thought she was a gold digger. After a few years, though, they came to like her, and Ezra's father became involved in the family businesses."

"So?"

"So," continued Byron. "When Ezra was twelve, she died trying to give birth to his sister. The baby was stillborn. No amount of money could save her life."

"Okay," said Aria non-committal.

"The thing is that Ezra's mother knew she shouldn't have more children. She had had such a hard time giving birth to Ezra. But she wanted a daughter, and Ezra's father tried his best to make that happen. They finally found a doctor who said she could survive the birth of another child."

"But it didn't work."

"It didn't work," affirmed Byron. "Ezra's father became cold and distant. He loved Felicity Springer with all his heart and never really recovered after her death. It was all about making more money. He thought that if he had more money, he could have saved his wife. He became consumed, and all but ignored Felicity's son. Ezra hates the legacy his father left him, but it's all he has left of his family now, a pile of money and the house next door."

"Hmm," responded Aria.

"That last summer," continued Byron, "that last summer she was alive, she came back to visit her parents, to tell them about her pregnancy. She felt guilty because she knew she should have visited them more often, so she brought Ezra with her. You were three. One day, while your mother was gardening outside and you were playing in the yard, you wandered over the fence line. Ezra was playing in the tree house his grandfather had built for him. You started babbling something, and climbed down to talk with you. I had come home late from work that day. I went outside looking for your mom, and I saw you, both of you, talking together between the wooden slats of the fence. You weren't making any sense, and neither was he, but you didn't care. The both of you just looked so happy."

"And?"

"And I turned to your mother, who was busy with the flowers, and she looked at me and said 'watch those two end up together some day.' She'll deny she ever said it now, but she did." Byron got up from his seat, tucked the chair back into the desk, and walked towards the door.

Aria sat up suddenly. "Dad?" she called.

He turned to her. "Yes, sweetheart?"

"Did you ever know, when Ezra's mom visited her parents, did you ever know she was a Fitzgerald?"

Byron smiled ruefully. "Felicity Springer was an only child, and a stubborn one. She refused to give up her last name when she got married. I could tell, during the handful of visits she made to her parents, that she was wealthy. Not that she flaunted it in your face. You could just tell by the kinds of clothes she wore and the fact that she didn't have a job. But did I know that she came from Fitzgerald kind of money? No, I didn't, and the Springers never liked to talk about it. I think it hurt too much."

Aria watched her father go, and then turned back to the wall. She let her mind drift and thought about Ezra's book. _When Angels Fall_ was the title. Was it about Ezra? The two stories sounded awfully similar…

_ "My father died," Ian told the man woodenly. They sat across from each other in the tiny living room filled with knick-knacks and outdated furniture. _

_ "I saw it in the paper," said Tom. He stroked his white beard thoughtfully for a moment. "What are you going to do now?"_

_ "I don't know," answered the younger man honestly. "I'm still so mad at him for everything he's done."_

_ "What is it that he's done?" asked Tom. He shifted in his leather seat as he waited for Ian to respond. _

_ "He abandoned us, both of us. He cared too much about his money and not enough about his family. In the end, his money couldn't save her from a brain aneurism. Even the world's best doctors couldn't fix that," finished Ian harshly. _

_ "Hmm," said Tom, running his fingers through the fistful of hair that he had left. "What happened, when you're mother died?"_

_ "I've told you a dozen times," replied Ian, turning his attention to the cityscape outside the window. _

_ "Humor me," prompted the older man. _

_ "He shut himself up inside. He became cold and distant. He had this portrait painted of her from this old photograph he had. He used to stare at it for hours at a time, usually while he was drinking himself into a stupor." _

_ "I see," said Tom, thoughtfully. He stroked his beard. _

_ "What is it?" asked Ian. "Tell me," he leaned forward in his seat. _

_ "It sounds like your father really mourned the death of your mother." _

_ "Of course he did," answered Ian. "It was his greatest failure, the one thing that money couldn't get him."_

_ "But money could have bought him another wife," returned Tom. "Yet, he never remarried."_

_ "No," said Ian bluntly. _

_ "It seems like your father really loved your mother," ventured Tom. "Loved her even after she was gone." _

_ "That's not possible," replied Ian. "If he loved her, then he should have loved me. I was four when she died. Four! He could have given me some comfort instead of shipping me off to an army of nannies." _

_ "I think he did love you, son," replied Tom gently. "In his own way. He couldn't take care of you, so he made sure to find people that could."_

_ "But he couldn't even look at me for years," protested Ian. _

_ "He must of really loved your mother. From what you've told me, you favor her in looks." _

_ Ian was stunned. "That can't be it." He shook his head. _

_ "Son, sometimes we don't tell our children things because we think it'll hurt them more to hear it than it is to keep them from finding out."_

_ "Good parents don't do that," said Ian quickly. _

_ "Well," said Tom, rubbing the bald spot on his head. "I guess that makes me and Angie bad parents." _

_ "You didn't…," said Ian in disbelief. _

_ "I'm afraid we did," replied Tom, nodding his head. _

_ "What are you talking about?" asked Angie, she came into the living room with a tray of faded china and cookies. She gave some tea to her husband and to Ian before sitting next to her visitor on the couch. _

_ "You know perfectly well what we were talking about, Angie. You could hear us from the kitchen," answered Tom lightly. _

_ "I think you were just about to tell Ian about when we got married," said Angie mischievously, taking a sip of her tea. _

_ "May 23, 1957," recited Ian proudly. _

_ "Sorry, son," replied Tom. He took a bite of one of Angie's chocolate chip cookies. "Try October 7, 1979."_

_ "Excuse me?" asked Ian dumbly. _

_ "Sweetie," replied Angie gently. "Back in the fifties, they weren't letting colored folks and white folks get married. But we loved each other, and we decided we'd get married even it wouldn't be legal-like." _

_ "Then why the '57 date?" asked Ian. _

_ "That's for Meredith," answered Tom. He polished off his cookie and reached for another one. "She was born in '61. We didn't want her being raised thinking her parents weren't married. As soon as Merry was off to college, we quietly went down to the courthouse to have it all done proper."_

_ "And she doesn't know?"_

_ "Not a clue," replied Tom. "But that doesn't answer my question. What did your dad do that was so bad that you can't forgive him?" _


	13. Discussing and Displaying

**A/N Please keep reviewing. Your comments/questions let me know where I should clear things up and the things I need to explain more in depth. **

* * *

"Everyone dies." Aria was standing outside Ezra's front door late on a Friday night.

"What?" asked Ezra from inside the doorway.

"I reread your book. Everyone dies at the end," she repeated.

He sighed. "Do you want to come in?" She followed him inside, not to the living room, but into the kitchen. She sat at the table while he poured her a cup of tea and set a plate of cookies down in front of her. "Your mother brought them over yesterday," he explained.

She sipped her tea before setting it down on the table. "You lied to me."

He looked down and stared at the patterns in the wooden table. "I lied to myself. I thought that if I didn't tell you, I could protect you."

"My dad told me about your mom, about how she died. I'm sorry," Aria told him sincerely.

Ezra drank some of his tea before setting it back down on the table. "As soon I turned eighteen, I rejected my inheritance. Money didn't save my mom, and it consumed my dad."

"What happened?" ventured Aria. She nibbled on a cookie.

"My dad wasn't happy with me. He became even more upset when I majored in English instead of business. He agreed to my terms, though. Sometimes, I think that the less I could bother him, the better."

"But you ended up with all the money anyway."

"I did," replied Ezra. "My father left everything to his brother, Wesley, and Uncle Wes, who didn't have any children, was supposed to leave everything to Dad. But Uncle Wesley died a few months before Dad did, making his will void, and then Dad died. There was another will, an alternate one that Dad had made up after Uncle Wes passed. He never told me about it. He left me everything."

"Ezra," began Aria uncertainly, "doesn't the Fitzgerald family have dozens of businesses? You're not working long hours in an office somewhere, and you're not exactly business minded…" her voice trailed off.

"Well, when I first heard about everything, about the new will, I wanted to give everything away, but Isaac, my lawyer, said I couldn't do that. It something about how the will was worded and the business structures. I am completely silent partner. I am hoping that eventually Isaac will figure out a way I can give my stake in these businesses to the business partners."

Aria sighed. "You're dad died three years ago. Why did you wait so long to tell me?"

"Do you remember that I was in California so long after Dad died?"

Aria nodded. "I had always thought it was because of Jackie."

"No, it was because of the will and all the complications that went with it." Ezra sighed and rubbed his eyes. "All that money has caused me nothing but pain and hurt. I didn't want it touching you, all that pain and hurt."

"It's touched me anyway, Ezra." Aria took a sip of her tea and looked at him expectantly.

"Everyone dies at the end. The book. Everyone dies at the end. I never had a real family, and then, suddenly, my family was dead. All I had left was you and your family. My family was destroyed by wealth. I didn't want to destroy the only family that ever felt real to me."

"The Springers," said Aria suddenly. "You had Grandma and Grandpa."

"I didn't know it when I was a kid," explained Ezra. "They were my mom's family. And they lived all the way in Pennsylvania. I was young. I thought that if my dad couldn't bear to look at me because I looked too much like my mom, then they wouldn't be able to stand the sight of me either. When I was in college, though, I started calling and writing letters. The plan was to move to Rosewood or nearby after I graduated to get to know them better."

"But the car accident happened."

Ezra nodded. "I graduated a month afterward. They left me their house. I figured that if I couldn't get to know them in person, then at least their things, their possessions could tell me something. Something about them and about my mom."

"And the job at Rosewood High. Did you plan that?"

"That just kind of happened. I told you that I had forfeited my inheritance. I did need some way to support myself. I majored in English and I did want to teach. I just didn't think I would get hired here in Rosewood. I thought my chances of teaching in Philadelphia were better, of finding a job there."

"Well," said Aria finishing off her tea, "that leaves us in our current predicament."

"Yes?"

"I'm not mad that you told me, Ezra. Or even that it took you so long to tell me. You're the same Ezra you were yesterday. You're the guy next door, the one that lent me books and nourished my love of literature and art. You're the guy that took me and my friends on the Halloween Train when were fourteen because you wanted to be nice not because you had to." She sighed. "I'm mad because of the way you told me. When you wrote that resignation letter to Rosewood High, it just brought up everything that was wrong with us. It confirmed this feeling of being slutty and dirty, and, and doing something _wrong_." Aria paused for a moment to gather her thoughts before continuing. "But telling me that in the middle of trying to get s_ex_ from you." She shook her head. "That made me feel like more of a whore than you will ever know."

"I am truly sorry, Aria," Ezra told her. "I never meant to make you feel like that. But you would have felt like more of a whore, I think, if I had told you after it happened."

"Maybe," conceded Aria.

"We are wrong in so many ways," admitted Ezra. "But I think we are more right than we are wrong. We shouldn't let the circumstances define us."

"Shouldn't we?" she asked, her eyebrow arched.

"Aria," his eyes slid shut in pain. "Please don't give up on us."

"I talked to Simone," said Aria suddenly.

"What about?" questioned Ezra warily.

"You. She said that you've been lying to yourself for a long time."

"About what?"

"She said that you loved me even when you were with her." Aria looked into his blue eyes, questioning him.

"Do you want to know when I first fell in love with you, at least when I first realized you were someone special in my life?"

"Tell me," prompted Aria.

"I had just come back to California. It was early on a January morning, a Saturday because I had woken up extremely late and you weren't in school. You rang the doorbell and offered me a plate of cookies. You had wanted to check to see how I was doing, to make sure I was alright. You were so warm and cheery, and I had spent the night with someone who I knew wasn't a good person. I've kept going over that moment over and over again in my head." He shook his head helplessly. "I've realized that that's the only time I never invited you in."

"I thought you were going to say it was the day I walked into your classroom."

"No," answered Ezra thoughtfully. "I think that's the first time I saw you as a woman, as a very attractive woman. Maybe you never noticed it, but Khan was drooling over you that entire first class. It made me want to punch him."

Aria laughed slightly. "When I was in Iceland, I met someone. His name was Oskar. I thought he was funny and smart. And he spoke English well. Anyway, after we had been dating for a while, he started to pressure me into doing things, and I couldn't make myself do them." She shut her eyes and then opened them. "I didn't know why then, but I do know why now. It was because I was waiting for you."

"I suppose we're going to have to keep on waiting," said Ezra. He finished his tea.

"You were right to insist we wait until after I graduate. I would hate myself afterwards."

"It would certainly make your dad happy, and I wouldn't want to do anything to make him want me to skin him alive."

"Now that Mom and Dad know about us, I wonder what they think," thought Aria aloud.

"I think they would be happier if you were a couple years older and I was a couple years younger," replied Ezra honestly.

"That's the one thing we can't change," answered Aria hopelessly.

"We could cool things off until you turn eighteen," suggested Ezra. "You're birthday is right around graduation."

"I think we should get to know each other better before we go any further," said Aria. She shrugged. "I know that sounds silly since we've known each other for years, but I still think it's a good idea."

"It is a good idea. We need to get to know each other as adults in an adult relationship. But graduation does imply some change regardless of us."

"Is this your way of asking me where I'm going to go to college?"

"Yes," answered Ezra sheepishly.

Aria smiled slightly. "I've applied to UCLA, U of Penn, NYU, Columbia, Hollis, of course, a few liberal arts schools in Massachusetts."

"If could go anywhere, where would it be?"

"If I could go anywhere, where would you want to live?"

Ezra sighed. "Aria, it doesn't work like that. You can't pack up your high school English teacher and take him with you to college."

"I thought we had been over this," let out Aria in frustration. "You are more than just my high school English teacher."

"Okay, okay." Ezra thought for a moment. "I think you should go where you want to go, but I really do love my teaching job."

"Okay, so UCLA and Massachusetts are out. Hollis?"

"I think you would feel too stuck, too stifled if you stayed here in Rosewood. And I think you would hate feeling as if your dad were looking over your shoulder the entire time. College is a time to act stupid and make mistakes."

"U of Penn, NYU or Columbia?" asked Aria.

"I think you would really like living in New York," offered Ezra. "But I don't want to make your decision for you."

"Well, let's see where I get accepted. I haven't gotten any letter yet."

"Good idea," he answered. "UCLA…I know you've always wanted to go to California. Let me take you one day," he suggested.

"Do I get to see the house you grew up in?" she asked.

"I told you about it once," said Ezra thoughtfully. "Don't you remember? You asked me about it once. The house in Beverly Hills with fifteen bedrooms…

"…the pool and the tennis courts. The house made out of limestone? I remember. That was your house?"

"That _is_ my house," replied Ezra. "I own it even if people are renting it out."

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised," said Aria quietly, "now that I know you're a Fitzgerald. Still the idea that you grew up in that mansion and then moved to this." Aria gestured to her surroundings.

"That house in California is cold and impersonal," he explained, "and I took the best, what I liked best about it, and brought it here."

"What do you mean?" asked Aria, she followed Ezra's gaze to the small painting that hung on the wall behind him. It was of an eighteenth century woman pouring milk into a pitcher. "That's not a…"

"A Vermeer?" finished Ezra. "Yes it is."

"Wait a minute, and that painting over the fireplace. I always thought that was an imitation, but is that a," Aria swallowed. "Is that a Manet?" She looked over her shoulder and into the living room.

"Yes," he answered. "And there's a Monet in the dining room and a Warhol in the study."

"Ezra," exclaimed Aria. "Your house is practically a museum." She paled. "What else don't I know about?"

"My mom loved art. It's what she majored in in college. I thought it would be a nice touch putting up all this art in the house she grew up in. Some of her works are up too. Some of the watercolors on the staircase and paintings in the guest bedrooms."

"Oh," said Aria, her voice small.

"Are you still mad at me?" he asked gently. "I understand you were upset about the way I told you."

"I got angry, well besides the other thing, I got angry because I thought you still thought of me as some little girl who needed to be protected from the truth. The, the truth about sex, about you, about your family, about your money. I don't need to be protected anymore, Ezra. I'm not a little girl anymore."

"I think you made that abundantly clear to your parents at dinner the other night," said Ezra dryly.

"Yeah, Dad's not very happy with me, and neither is Mom for that matter."

"Well,"

"Well," agreed Aria. She looked around the kitchen. "I suppose I should go, before it gets too late."

"There's one more thing you need to know, Aria." Ezra sighed. "And you're not going to like it."

"Please don't tell me you have a kid somewhere out there," joked Aria. "I don't think I could handle being a stepmother at seventeen."

"No, no kid. I promise." He took a deep breath. "I do, however, haven an ex-fiancée."

"Please don't tell me," Aria let it hang.

"It's Jackie. From when I dated her the first time."

"I never liked her," said Aria through gritted teeth.

"Apparently your instincts are better than mine. Once I figured it out, I couldn't believe I had been so stupid. We dated in college. She was my first serious girlfriend. I asked her to marry me and she said yes. She broke up with me. We didn't speak to each other for years, and then she showed up at my dad's funeral. And, as luck would have it, she got a job at Hollis that was going to begin in a few weeks."

"That gold-digger," spat out Aria.

Ezra nodded his head. "You got that right. She broke up with me when she figured out I gave up my inheritance, and then she got back together with me when she found out I inherited everything anyway."

Aria leaned back in her chair. "I'm glad you told me."

"I'm glad I told you too,"

"No more secrets?"

"No more secrets," promised Ezra firmly. Aria smiled. "Aria," began Ezra hesitantly. "Feelings, feelings are complicated, and they don't always make sense, but promise me that you will always tell me how you feel even if you think I won't like it."

"I will," answered Aria easily, "If you'll do the same."

"Done," said Ezra.

"I really should go home now," said Aria, glancing at the clock on the wall. She got up from her chair.

"You could stay," offered Ezra. "We could watch a movie."

"What happened to taking it slow?"

"We are taking it slow. We are just going to sit in the living room and watch a movie. We'll even leave the curtains open so we're not tempted to do anything your parents might not approve of."

Aria thought for a moment. "You make the popcorn while I pick a movie?"

"Butter or no butter on your popcorn?" returned Ezra.

_April 2, 2012_

_ I finished rereading Ezra's book today. I guess I should say Elliot Harding's book. That's Ezra's pen name. Everyone dies at the end. Why? The only people left are Meredith and Ian. Is it supposed to be some kind of commentary about Ezra's own life? Does he think everybody is going to leave him? If it is, that's an extremely bleak outlook on life. But in his own way, everyone has left Ezra: his grandparents, his parents, and we even left him for a year to go to Iceland. _

_ Or maybe it's about hope. Everyone dies because there is a new beginning, a new story to start. That would be wonderful, wouldn't it, if it were a happy ending instead of a sad one? Maybe it's about living our lives without the hurt and pain of the generations that came before us. On the other hand, how can we be who we are without the generations of the past? I think I'm having an existentialist crisis…_

_ Ezra's mom's name was Felicity. Felicity means happiness and it means joy. From what dad told me, Felicity Springer did not live a long or happy life. She was snubbed by her husband's family and didn't visit her parents nearly enough. But maybe she was true to her name and happier than I think she was. I guess only we can measure how happy or sad our own lives are, give ourselves sad or happy endings. _


	14. Wondering and Whispering

**A/N Please Review! Reviews=motivation=updates. **

**Merry Christmas, everyone! **

* * *

"What do you think it's like?" asked Hanna suddenly, distractedly, looking up from her texting, her perfectly manicured fingers frozen in place, hovering just about the screen. She stared at the dark-haired girl who walked across the courtyard of Rosewood High and sighed at what she saw.

"Hmm?" questioned Caleb looking up from his laptop, his fingers continuing to type, following Hanna's gaze.

"Meeting your soul mate when you're thirteen and knowing that's the person you're supposed to spend your life with?" clarified Hanna.

Caleb stopped typing and closed his screen to really look at the dark-haired girl who was busy talking to Emily. "I don't think it's all sunshine and butterflies, that's for sure," he answered with a shake of his head.

"Still," insisted Hanna, "there is something romantic about it. Guy next door meets girl next door."

"More like creepy man next door meets little girl next door," snorted Caleb, moving to re-open his laptop.

Hanna nudged him as she stuck her cell phone in her purse. "You don't really think that, do you? You like Mr. Fitz, right?"

Caleb shrugged and turned his attention back to his work. "I like him well enough for a teacher. I just think something is weird, that's all, for a grown man to fall for a high school girl."

"It it?" asked Hanna. "My dad is almost ten years older than my mom."

"And look at how that ended up," returned Caleb, his tone dripping with acid.

"Hey," exclaimed Hanna, "that's not fair."

"Okay," said Caleb, "I guess it's not. But still. Of all the women in this town why Aria?"

"Of all the women in this town, why not Aria?"

"Because she's much younger than him, in high school, and what about the part where she's his student?" asked Caleb skeptically.

"True love doesn't care about things like that," replied Hanna dreamily.

"True love doesn't want to end up in an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs, either."

"What's your problem today?" asked Hanna, turning her attention to her boyfriend and the screen that popped up on his computer.

"I just think," said Caleb, his gaze lingering on Aria as she entered the main building with Emily, "that you think she has it so easy and perfect when her life might be harder than what you give her credit for."

"What are you looking up?" asked Hanna.

"I think," said Caleb softly, "that after all those years in foster care, I finally found my mom. She's in California."

"Oh," replied Hanna, leaning in closer to him and resting her head on his shoulder so she could study the computer screen more carefully.

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"Earth to Jason," said Spencer as she sat down next to him on the sofa. "What are you doing?" She took a sip of her coffee.

"Just thinking," he replied turning to her. He stared in amazement as she clutched her drink. "I'm not entirely sure why you like the coffee here so much," he continued, grimacing as he took a sip of his.

"Coffee at The Brew?" replied Spencer incredulously. "It's the best. I can't help it if you have poor taste." She took another sip from her mug. "But, seriously, what were you looking at?"

"Oh, just Mr. Fitz," he said gesturing his head in the direction where the man was sitting at a table reading a book and sipping his coffee. "He was my twelfth grade English teacher."

"I have him this year. Last year, too, actually. We're reading _A Room of One's Own_ in there right now."

"That's the one about women's rights, by that Woolfe woman, right? That was a complete boor." Jason closed his eyes and pretended to snore as Spencer smacked him on his arm. He laughed and opened his eyes.

"It happens to be a wonderful commentary on women's rights and male privilege," said Spencer, rolling her eyes.

"See," replied Jason, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly, "this is why you're going to end up at some Ivy League prep fest while I barely graduated from a state school."

Spencer smiled and sighed, taking a moment to sip her coffee. "I'm glad we have these brother-sister dates."

"So do I. What are we going to do when you're away at school?"

Spencer took a large gulp of her coffee, "You're going to have to come visit me in New York."

"So it's Columbia, then?" asked Jason, leaning back into the sofa.

"I just got my acceptance letter yesterday," answered Spencer. "It's a really great school, and I really think I just need to get away from Rosewood."

"You ready to brave the big city alone?" questioned Jason as the bells above the doors signaled the entrance of another person. Spencer's head perked up at the noise, and she smiled.

"Now, there's a brother-sister pair I wonder about," she exclaimed, her gaze following the entrance of the Montgomery siblings into the coffeehouse. She waved at Aria who waved distractedly back as she and Mike walked up to Mr. Fitz.

"Why?" asked Jason, setting his barely touched coffee down on the table in front of him.

"Oh, I don't know," said Spencer. "They have that typical brother-sister vibe siblings have from living together, a love-hate kind of relationship."

"They look like they're really close to Mr. Fitz," commented Jason, leaning back into the plush sofa.

"His been their neighbor for years," explained Spencer. "He's like a member of the Montgomery family." She watched as the siblings sat down with Ezra. He must have said something funny because Aria was smiling and Mike was snickering.

"You'd think by now, he would have started his own family," said Jason.

Spencer turned to him. "What do you mean?"

"He's a nice-looking guy and he has a house and good job. Doesn't that just scream wife and kids to you?"

"He's not that much older than you are," returned Spencer, sipping her coffee.

Jason snorted. "He's enough older. It just makes you wonder."

"Wonder what?"

"What he's waiting for."

Spencer watched as Mr. Fitz picked up his book and followed Aria and Mike out the door. His look was one of pure adoration. "Maybe it's not what he's waiting for, but who he's waiting for," she finished. "Maybe he's waiting on the right girl."

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"Oh, look at this one," exclaimed Ella. "Aria must have been five. Oh, how she loved that princess dress." She pointed to the faded picture in the photo album and snuggled closer to her husband who had his arm around her shoulders.

Byron shifted in his seat—his living room sofa—to accommodate his wife before replying, "I had forgotten she had a princess phase. But she did for a while there didn't she? What was it? Sleeping Beauty? Cinderella?"

"It was Beauty and the Beast," said Ella flipping the page. "She said that one day, she wanted to have a library like the Beast gave Belle. There she is in that one costume."

"Funny," said Byron, studying the picture carefully. "I don't remember Mike having a phase like that."

"Well," said Ella thoughtfully, "there was that time Mike _really _liked the Lion King. We must have watched it with him over a dozen times." She flipped several pages of the album. "And there's the picture to prove it," she gestured triumphantly.

"Hmm," said Byron, "What's Aria doing in the background?" He pointed to where Aria was standing on a chair reaching for something on the counter while a four-year-old Mike posed in his Simba pajamas.

"Oh," laughed Ella in remembrance, "she was stealing cookies out of the cookie jar. She thought we were too busy with Mike to notice."

"She loves your chocolate cookies."

"They're your mom's chocolate chip cookies," explained Ella. "I got the recipe from her."

"I guess that's why I like them so much," teased Byron.

Ella turned to smack him before repositioning herself. "Actually," she said, staring at the picture, "the person who seems to like them the most is Ezra. He cleaned me out the last time he came over."

"Did he now?" replied Byron thoughtfully.

"He has been keeping his end of the bargain," replied Ella pointedly. "He's cooled things off with Aria, and when he goes out with her, Mike goes along."

"I suppose," responded Byron half-heartedly.

"What's the matter?" asked Ella, sighing as she shut the photo album.

"It's just that I worry sometimes, about Aria and Ezra."

"What about?" prodded Ella.

"That they're rushing into things. That they really don't know all that much about each other. That he's too old for her."

"We can't prevent our children from making mistakes," said Ella practically. "We can only point them in the right direction."

"I don't want her to get hurt," replied Byron helplessly.

Ella snuggled in closer to him, putting the blue-leather photo album on the coffee table to do so. "Everyone gets hurt, Byron. No matter what we say, we can't prevent Aria from jumping, but if it comes down to it, we can help catch her if she falls."

"She needs more time to grow up," insisted Byron. "She needs to go to college, have fun, and not worry about her future."

"Even if she lives to be a hundred, she will always be our little girl, Byron."

Byron leaned down and kissed his wife's forehead in response, and then sat contentedly as he held her in his arms.

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"Emily," called Paige as she walked up to the other girl's locker. "Some of the girls on the swim team are going over to the Grille after practice. Do you want to come?"

Emily smiled at her girlfriend's invitation but shook her head in response. "I can't," she replied, reaching for some of the books she stored in her locker. "Mr. Fitz is holding tutorial after school, and I really need to go if I want my English grade to go up."

"You're really worried about college aren't you?" asked Paige, as she leaned her back against the locker next to Emily's.

"Aren't you?" asked Emily, worry evident in her voice. She shut her locker and looked at Paige carefully.

"Of course I am," answered Paige softly, "But I've known since I was five that I was going to Stanford. My dad started putting it in my head pretty early."

Emily sighed and started walking down the hallway. "My mom would be heartbroken if I went that far away."

"Emily," said Paige pointedly, "I thought we had already had this conversation."

"No, we did," said Emily. She half-smiled at her girlfriend. "I just had to say it again."

"Emily, if it's meant to be, we will find each other after college," Paige stopped in the hallway to reassure the other girl.

Emily took a deep breath and exhaled. "You're right. If it's meant to be we'll find each other. But until then…" she looked to the classroom in front of them.

"Until then we have now," said Paige. She leaned in to give Emily a kiss on the forehead. Emily smiled. "Rain check for the Grille?" asked Paige hopefully.

"Rain check," confirmed Emily. "Mr. Fitz is probably waiting for me right now." She looked into the classroom where Mr. Fitz was writing on his board. Aria was perched on the side of his desk, talking to him.

"They sure look…comfortable," said Paige, an odd ring in her voice.

"They grew up together," explained Emily. "I mean," she cleared her throat. "They've been neighbors since Aria was thirteen."

"Oh," said Paige. She saw as Aria said something and Ezra smiled in response. "If I didn't know any better I'd say they were more than neighbors."

"They are," said Emily.

Paige's eyebrows flew to her hairline. "Really?" she asked with interest.

"I j-just mean," stammered Emily, "that they're friends. Real friends." They saw Aria jumped off the edge of Mr. Fitz's desk and went over to the blackboard to correct something he had written.

"Isn't that illegal?" questioned Paige curiously.

"W-what do you mean illegal?" Emily watched as Aria put down the piece of chalk she was using and nodded in satisfaction before picking her bag up off the floor.

"I mean isn't it against the rules for teachers to teach students that they know well outside of the classroom?"

Emily shrugged. "Rosewood High is small," she explained. "And Mr. Fitz is the only twelfth grade English teacher.

"Oh," said Paige, losing interest as Aria exited the classroom and passed them as she walked down the hall. "So, I've gotta go, but later?" She began to walk away.

"Later," confirmed Emily. As soon as Paige was out of sight, she sighed. "That was close," she whispered to herself. Taking a deep breath, she walked into the classroom for her English tutorial.

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"That's another one for me," exclaimed Mike in triumph as the basketball fell through the hoop and bounced off the cement driveway.

"Oh, now you're going down, Montgomery," challenged Gavin as he picked up the ball and started dribbling. The boys scrimmaged for a while, taking a break when Mike made another shot.

"You staying for dinner?" asked Mike, after taking a drink of water.

"I can't," said Gavin, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the edge of his t-shirt. "My grandma's in town, and I promised my mom I would be home by six."

"We'd better call it quits, then," said Mike. "It's probably after five-thirty now."

"Oh, this isn't over, Montgomery," called out Gavin. He began to gather his things and stuff them into his gym bag.

"Oh course it's not," promised Mike sweetly.

"What? You don't think I can take you?" asked Gavin mockingly.

"I think next time we play, I'm going to be wiping you off my driveway," said Mike. At that, Gavin abandoned his things and lunged at Mike in an attempt to knock the basketball out of his hands. He stopped suddenly when something out of the corner of his eye caught his interest. "What is it, man?" asked Mike.

"Why is your sister over at Mr. Fitz's house?" asked Gavin, his tone one of utter bewilderment.

"Oh, he lives next door," said Mike nonchalantly. "Aria's been going over to his house lately because he's been helping her with her college applications."

"Doesn't look like they're working on applications," said Gavin, pointing to where the pair was sitting, plainly visible through the window.

"Um, well, sometimes Mr. Fitz and Aria talk about books and art and stuff. None of her friends are really into that, and she got really into the art thing when we were in Iceland. Mr. Fitz got her her first camera."

"Why?"

"Oh, Mr. Fitz's mom was an artist and he and Aria just seem to like to talk about that kind of thing, and then, of course, he is an English teacher so that's where the book thing comes from." Mike was babbling now, his voice becoming more nervous with every second.

"No, why'd he give her the camera?"

"Oh, it was for her birthday. He gave me Lions tickets for mine. I mean, my last one," explained Mike earnestly. "And Mom usually takes him cookies or something for his."

"Oh," said Gavin distractedly. He shrugged and reached for his bag. "I need to get going if I'm going to make it home before six." He began to walk down the driveway and down to his house a few blocks over. "See you later, man."

"See you," waved Mike. He turned to Aria and Ezra and thanked the stars that Gavin had left before he saw Aria give Ezra a peck on the lips.

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"Mrs. Welch," called Holden as he raced down the hallway of Rosewood High. "Mrs. Welch," he repeated.

She turned to him distractedly. "Oh. Holden. How can I help you?"she asked politely.

"Look," he panted. "I know submissions were due yesterday for the school's literary magazine, but if you could just read this poem, I think that you would agree that it should be published." He held out a sheet of paper towards her.

"Oh, yes, yes," she replied, taking the paper from him and sticking it in the pile she had in her arms. "I am sure you're work is excellent."

"Does that mean it's going to be published?" questioned Holden hopefully.

"Yes, of course," said Mrs. Welch, turning away from him and looking in the opposite direction. "The literary magazine is due to come out next month."

"Mrs. Welch?" asked Holden uncertainly, "Is everything okay?"

"Oh, I'm sure everything will be fine," she answered in a voice that sounded as if everything would _not_ be fine. She shook her head vigorously. "It just makes me sick," she spat out in agitation. She took a deep breath and sighed. "I probably shouldn't be telling you this," she said her tone one of unease and frustration. "You are a student." She took a moment to survey the nearly abandoned hallways. She leaned in closer to Holden. "Have you heard anything?" she asked him eagerly.

"Heard anything about what?" he replied, leaning in toward her in a posture of mock-conspiracy.

"Why Mr. Fitz and a student of course," answered Mrs. Welch matter-of-factly.

"Mr. Fitz and a student," repeated Holden uneasily, taking a step away from the teacher.

"Yes. I've heard some students say it's Aria Montgomery." She inclined her head in the direction where Aria was sitting on the stairs, oblivious to their presence and she texted on her phone.

"Aria?" Holden looked between the two women uncertainly. "I don't know what you're getting at Mrs. Welch," he continued. "But Aria Montgomery is my friend."

"She may be your friend," said Mrs. Welch, a slight sting in her words. "But I've heard she's Mr. Fitz's _friend_ too." She raised her eyebrows suggestively.

"Like I said," repeated Holden, his hands held up in a posture of surrender. "Aria's my friend, and she's been his neighbor for years, and so has Mrs. Montgomery."

"Still," said Mrs. Welch turning her attention back to Aria, "the thought of a good teacher like Mr. Fitz getting involved with a student…" she shuddered before continuing, "it makes me sick."

"Maybe they're just rumors," offered Holden. "Aria's been gone for over a year, and nothing interesting at school has happened since Noel Khan was caught cheating on his midterms. It makes for interesting gossip."

"Maybe," said Mrs. Welch distractedly.

"So, my poem?" asked Holden hopefully, retuning his attention to the paper in her hands.

"Oh, yes. I'll take a look at it, Holden," said Mrs. Welch as she continued her walk down the hallway, leaving Holden to look at Aria curiously, where she sat as obliviously as before.

_April 10, 2012_

_We never know how life is going to turn out. A chance interaction can affect a person for a lifetime, little ripples of water turn into bigger and bigger circles. A mistake made years ago can haunt years later. I wonder if it's chance that gives and takes from us what it would. Do the Fates still spin our destinies? Maybe it's man that creates his own path in life. Or in my case, woman. _

_It's easy to blame our parents for things that we inherit, the problems and pains of this world. It's easy to blame their parents and their parents until we go back to Adam and Eve. But this doesn't solve anything except spread the blame around. If it continues this way then my children will blame me and their children will blame them until another hundred generations have lived and died on this earth. _

_It's much harder to blame ourselves for the bad things that happen, and most of the time it's not our fault for every bad thing that happens in our life. But that doesn't mean it's not not our fault either. I don't know what I'm rambling about. I guess I just think about Hanna who's had to deal with both the tragedy of her family breaking apart and the joy of find Caleb. And I think about Emily who is finally coming to terms with who she is before all that was ripped away from her. And I wonder about Spencer who has been through more in the last two years than most people experience in al lifetime, and who's still hiding secrets from her friends, secrets she shouldn't be burdened with. _

_The past can never be erased or undone. We can only move forward by learning from other people's mistakes and learning from our own. Today was the first day of the rest of my life. That sounds cliché, I know. But somehow it's true. I've entered a new phase, a new something that is more than just my senior year of high school. I don't know what's going to come next, what the Fates will weave for me or what the throw of the dice will be. But I, Aria Montgomery, am going to let whatever happens happen. That doesn't mean I'll let it define me, but it does mean that I will let it to help me grow and move forward. _


	15. Changing and Challenging

Aria walked through the front door of Ezra's house. Her heels echoed on the hardwood floors, and she quietly walked past the entryway and into the living room. Finding both the dining room and the kitchen empty, she walked down the hallway, stopping for a moment to examine one of the paintings she found hanging on the wall next to the laundry room. Studying it closely, she stepped away when she was satisfied with what she had seen, and walked one door down. It was closed, but she opened it easily. She found Ezra at his desk, writing something carefully. He was so deep in thought, that he barely noticed when she slid something across his desk.

"Aria?" he asked questioningly, looking at what she had set before him, somewhat startled and disoriented out of what he had been focused on.

"Read it," she urged him, gesturing to the envelope she had placed in front of him.

"Okay, give me a minute," he said uncertainly as he tore open the tightly sealed letter. As he took a moment to read it, Aria paced restlessly across his study, fingering and absently studying the titles. She took several seconds to look at the empty space above Ezra's empty head and out the window. It used to be a perfect view of the tree house, once upon a time.

"This is good news," said Ezra pleased. "Really good news." His tone was one of glowing admiration, the kind he would use on a student who performed particularly well on an exam or had written a touching piece of work.

"It it?" asked Aria, her eyebrow raised, reminded that Ezra was her teacher and she was his high school student.

"You don't think so?" asked Ezra confusedly, looking up from the cream colored page and at where she stood across the room.

"I haven't read it," admitted Aria. "Spencer was waving hers around a week ago, like a proud peacock," said Aria, a hint of laughter in her voice. "But she's a Hastings. She probably had early admission or something."

"Aria," said Ezra gently, "You got into Columbia. Of course this is great news."

"Columbia, huh?" said Aria, turning her attention back out the window. "That's all the way in New York City."

"A couple of weeks ago, you wanted to go as far away as California for school." Ezra rose from his seat and walked over to her.

"So much change," said Aria looking up at him. "And new challenges."

"You will love it there," he assured her, squeezing her hand.

"It's not home," said Aria. "No Emily or Hanna or Mom or Dad or Mike. No walking next door for a book or a quick chat or a kiss," she finished absently. "No going to The Brew for a cup of coffee. No going to the Grille for a quick bite." She reached up and stroked his cheek softly. "No seeing you every day." They stood like that for a moment before she pulled away and began fingering the angel pendant at her throat.

"I will miss you too," said Ezra, replying to her unspoken statement. He tugged at her arm and led her to one of the big easy chairs he kept in his study. He sat in it and pulled her on top of him.

On his lap, she was eye-level with him, and Aria studied his carefully before responding in the form of a kiss, the first one they had shared in a while. It was urgent and it was needy, but it was slow and giving at the same time. It was deep and led to another and another, stopping only when Ezra felt tears on his cheeks.

"Why are you crying?" he asked her, wiping her tears away with his thumb.

"Because it's really happening," she answered. "It's one thing to talk about it, to apply to these schools. It's another thing to know that you're really going away."

"You spent the whole year away," he responded, prompting her to finish her thought. "Across an ocean."

"But we just found each other," she exclaimed. "We just found each other and now we have to say good-bye. I hate saying good-bye." She bit back a sob and furiously rubbed at her face with her hands. "I could go to Hollis," she offered suddenly. "I wouldn't have to leave. Nothing would change."

"You hate me," answered Ezra swiftly. "You would feel tied down and bottled up and you would resent me for it. Maybe not right away, but you would."

She was silent before climbing off his lap, and turned her attention out the window. "What does this mean for us?" asked Aria.

He got up from the chair to stand beside her before responding. "This means I visit you in New York. I have an apartment there. It's in Manhattan, not far from Central Park, right across from the Met."

"What's it like?" she asked. "On the inside?"

"It has four bedrooms, I think," he said, furrowing his brow. "Maybe five. I'm not sure. It has a living room and a dining room and a study. A kitchen. The view is supposed to be spectacular."

"You've never been there?" asked Aria, her voice woodenly surprised.

"It belonged to Uncle Wesley and he used only when he was in New York which wasn't often."

"It's not homey, then," concluded Aria. "Not like here." She gestured to her surroundings

"You could change that," suggested Ezra.

She changed the subject. "I have to go tell my parents about Columbia."

He smiled at her, a smile, she noted, that was both hopeful and sad. "Go tell them," he urged. "They'll be excited." She nodded as he continued. "You're not Spencer Hastings, you're Aria Montgomery, and I've always known you would do great things."

Aria cocked her head to the side. "How?"

"After I had known you for a while, a few months, I think, after I moved here, you came over with Emily. You girls needed help with your English essay. You wrote your essay with such feeling that I just knew then, all those years ago."

She half-smiled at him. "See you later?"

"Always," he replied as she turned to leave the room.

She had been gone for several minutes when Ezra pulled a glass bottle from one of his desk drawers and poured the amber liquid into a glass. He finished it in three quick swallows. He poured himself another glass. When he finished his second glass, he slumped in his desk chair, a posture of near-defeat.

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"We've spent some time this semester discussing Nihilism," said Ezra sitting on the corner of his classroom desk. "What do you think it means?"

"It's about destruction," offered Emily.

"Oh, okay," said Ezra crossing his arms in a friendly manner. "In what way?"

"Destructing the past. It has no meaning in modern times," she explained. Although her voice had confidence, it shook slightly.

Ezra smiled at her in encouragement. "That's one way of looking at it. Does anyone else have another definition?"

"Life has no meaning," said Jenna. "If the past does not have meaning for the present, then one can conclude that the future also gives the present no meaning."

"Does the present have any meaning at all?" asked Ezra. "Or should it be destroyed also, like the past?"

"The present is what we know right now at this moment," called out Holden from the back row. "Once the moment passes, then the knowledge we have at that moment," he snapped his fingers in one swift motion, "ceases to exist and we know knew things."

Ezra nodded his head. "Then how can we really know anything at all?"

"We can't," said Spencer, her eyes wide.

"What about things like love or hope? Can we know things like that, for sure? What about morality? Someone talk to me about morality."

"If we can't _know_," answered Aria uneasily, "then we can't know between right and wrong. Morality doesn't exist either."

"But then how do we know the difference between right and wrong?" asked Hanna.

"There is a difference, Mr. Fitz," chimed in Mona with a naughty smile, "right?"

"We can _think _there is a difference between right and wrong, but is it real or do we make it up?" questioned Ezra, tapping his temple with his index finger.

"So maybe we don't know the difference between right and wrong," smirked Noel. "Maybe there is no such thing as love or hope. Maybe we don't know anything." He paused dramatically at this before continuing. "Then what's the point?"

"The point to what?" asked Ezra philosophically.

"The point to life," clarified Noel, his eyes glittering with challenge.

Ezra shrugged his shoulders and casually swung the leg resting on his desk back and forth. "I don't know, Mr. Kahn. Perhaps you could enlighten the class as to what you believe to be the meaning of life." Noel flushed as the class laughed softly, a scattering of giggles, while he bit back a biting response.

"If we go back to what Emily said," said Ezra, getting up from his leaning position and walking over to the blackboard. "Nihilism is about destruction." He wrote the word destruction in large letters that took up most of the space on the board. He turned back to his class. "But maybe destruction leads to rebuilding." Ezra erased the word destruction and then wrote the word rebuild in smaller letters on the board. "See," he gestured.

"All you did was wipe the board clean, Mr. Fitz," said Tyler hesitantly, "and then wrote something else."

"You're correct, Mr. Sperling," said Ezra, his voice loud and crisp. "I did erase what was on the board and I did write a new word." He cleared his throat as Tyler began to smile with self-assured confidence. "But you are also incorrect." The beginnings of Tyler's smile disappeared.  
"I had to destroy the old word in order to write a new one," he explained. He set the chalk down and looked at the open book on his desk. He looked back. "It's like a good-bye," he illustrated. "We have to say good-bye to certain things in order to say hello to others." He paused for a moment before continuing, "Please turn your textbooks to page three hundred-and-forty-two."

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"Ezra," called Ella, rapping her knuckles against his open classroom door.

"Oh, hi," said Ezra, looking up from the essays he was grading. "Did you need to talk to me about something?" He eyed her. She looked like she was about ready to go home for the day. She had her purse on one shoulder and her red leather purse-bag that she used as a briefcase was being held in her left hand.

"Yes, actually," said Ella, sighing. She walked over to the front row of student desks right in front of his larger teacher desk. She placed her bags in the seat before leaning against the desk part to face her colleague.

"What's wrong?" asked Ezra uneasily.

"We're not at home, Ezra," began Ella without preamble. "We're at work, and here I'm not your neighbor or your mother-figure or even your mother-in-law." She sighed. "Right now, I'm a colleague which is why I wanted to do this here instead of at home."

"Do what?" asked Ezra.

"I got elected by some of the teachers to come and talk to you." Her shoulders slumped slightly. "They're concerned about these rumors going around about you and a student."

Ezra let out a deep breath. "I've done as Byron asked; I backed off."

Ella nodded. "I know," she replied sympathetically. "Unfortunately the rumors have gone viral." She sighed. "I've thought about it."

"I've thought about it too," cut in Ezra. "The school year is almost over. Soon, students will graduate and go off to college. August will come again and new rumors will start floating around." He choose his words carefully.

"I'm going to ask you this and only ask you this once," continued Ella smoothly. "Answer the questions honestly and I can give a report to the teachers with a clear conscience."

"Okay," said Ezra uncertainly. "I will."

Ella took a deep breath. "Have you slept with any of your students?"

"No," said Ezra, taken slightly aback.

"Have you ever marked a student grade higher because of any sexual favors they might be giving you?"

"No."

"Have any students offered a sexual favor to you in order to have their grades marked higher?"

"No."

"Have you ever had any kind of relationship with any of your students?"

"I like to think that I have a relationship will all my students," answered Ezra. "However, I have lived next door to Aria for years, and I would say that I have a different kind of relationship with her and her friends because we've known each other much longer than they have been in my classroom."

"Why do you think these rumors started, about you and a student?"

"I think people look at things and think they see something when they're seeing something else."

Ella smiled. "See. That wasn't so bad, was it?" She got up to pick up her bags. "Now I can report back to those vultures with a clear conscience. See you tomorrow, Ezra," she called as she walked out the door.

Ezra watched her go. He had chosen his words carefully, but it was only after he reviewed the entire exchange in his head that he realized that Ella had chosen her words carefully too.

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Aria looked out her bedroom window before sighing and pulling out a book from the drawer by her desk. Ezra had given it to her yesterday. Aria reread the title page before she turned to the first chapter. _Winesburg, Ohio_ it read. She looked at the inscription on the book. _For When you leave Rosewood…_Ezra had written.

She sighed and read the first sentence. Ezra had been spending a lot of time at work lately. She wondered why. He cherished her even if it wasn't always at her beck and call, even if they didn't hang out at his house as much as they used to. She knew that. But he seemed preoccupied with something recently. Suddenly, she turned back to the inscription page. He was preoccupied about her leaving.

Aria looked to where the letter from Columbia sat on her desk. Was he afraid that she would leave and come back someone other than the girl next door? Was he just as afraid as her and unwilling to admit it? Was he still hurting from the past? Was she who thought all those things and put worries and wonders in his mind?

Abruptly angry she threw the book across the room. She hated being afraid, which is exactly what she was now. She hated change, which is inevitable. She hated challenges, difficult, heart-wrenching, life-altering challenges, which life is full of. She wasn't thirteen and he wasn't twenty-two. Suddenly that change seemed sudden and hurried.

Grabbing her journal from the bedside table, she began to write. After she had scrawled the first few sentences, her anger had quickly abated. Her hurried strokes began to become calmer and more peaceful. Her thoughts began to settle as she stopped thinking about the what-ifs of her life.

"You okay?" a voice asked suddenly from the doorway.

Startled Aria looked up from her bed, "Yeah, I'm fine, Mike," she answered easily.

Her brother noticed she wasn't smiling. "Are you sure? I thought I heard you throw something?" he asked pointedly.

"I did," she supplied calmly, refusing to explain.

_April 18, 2012_

_ When do we grow up? Is it a look in our eye, something we do? Is it the way we talk or the way we feel about a certain thing? Is it recognizing the difference between childhood and adulthood or recognizing that there is no difference between the two? Is growing up knowing that Death knocks on our doorstep, taking people that we love with it? Is growing up knowing that one day Death will come for us too?_

_ When do we fall in love? Is it when we know we will do anything for someone? Is it caring for the needs of another? Is it a look, a word, a motion, or a feeling? Is it an act or a deed? Is it a song or a verse? Is it an action or the result of one? Is it the answer or merely a part of the equation? Is it knowing or knowing that we don't know? _

_ When did I grow up?_

_ When did I fall in love? _


	16. Confessing and Compelling

**Thanks for the reviews! Please leave more. :)**

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"I had to talk to Ezra today," said Ella leaning in her bed pillows and staring up at the ceiling absently.

"Oh," said her husband looking up from his book. "About the weather or something in particular?" He turned to her.

She rolled her eyes and continued. "I got elected by Gloria Welch to talk to him about the rumors going on between him and a student."

"Oh," Byron replied, setting his book down on the nightstand, the interest in his tone evident. "How did it go?"

"I chose my words carefully," replied Ella. "And so did he. We danced around each other well enough, you'd of thought that we'd been practicing it."

"Well, you have," answered Byron, "for the last few months especially."

Ella studied her husband for a moment before returning her attention back to the ceiling. "What are we going to do when Aria leaves for college? Do you think the rumors will get better? Or will they get worse because Aria and Ezra will feel like they don't have to hide anymore?"

"I don't know," answered Byron honestly. "I really don't."

"I don't either," replied Ella, sighing. "And I'm not sure I like that feeling."

"Hey," he replied gently. She turned to him. "Aria's going to go off to college and everything is going to be fine."

She squeezed his hand. "Are you sure?"

"I am," he told her, and although Byron voiced the words, Ella heard the note of uncertainty.

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"Don't you have plans with _Ezra _tonight?" teased Spencer, flopping on the couch and handing Aria a bowl of popcorn.

"Yeah," chimed in Hanna. She elbowed Aria from the other side of the sofa. "Didn't you see the googly eyes she was making at him during class?" Hanna batted her eyelashes.

"What about all that talk about hellos and good-bye's from last week?" said Emily from her spot on the floor. She reached up to grab a handful of popcorn. "I wish he would explain things like that to _me_ during our tutoring sessions."

"Can we _please _not talk about it and watch the movie," grumbled Aria. "I get enough of it at home."

"Do you?" asked Spencer with interest. "Do tell."

Aria hugged the popcorn bowl closer to her chest. "Aren't your parents due back from work at any minute?"

"They're in Philadelphia and won't be back home tonight," answered Spencer sweetly. "We have all night."

"Really?" said Aria turning to her friend. "I thought Melissa was supposed to stop by when they're out-of-town."

"Please," said Spencer, rolling her eyes, "now you're making up excuses to get out of it. It just makes us _more_ interested."

"So what's going on at home?" questioned Hanna in a sing-song voice. "Tell Auntie Hanna everything."

Aria snorted. "Like I'm going to tell Auntie Hanna anything."

"Come on, spill it," demanded Emily. "We look at you two drool over each other in class every day, and we don't even get crumbs of information?"

"Tell us," repeated Spencer firmly. "I can tell you're dying to."

Aria sighed and looked at her friends. "Fine. We're having an argument-that's-not-really-an-argument about college."

"What about college?" asked Emily. "Paige and I had that discussion a month ago."

"About change, really," said Aria. "I'm moving away and he's staying here."

"Is that so bad?" asked Emily curiously. "I mean, you won't be terribly far away in New York and you'll be home all the time for breaks and vacations and stuff."

"And I'll be there," said Spencer poking Aria between the ribs.

"A year from now, I'll be thinking that this is silly," admitted Aria. "But right now, it feels like the weight of the world is about to crush me."

"If you really feel that way," said Spencer slowly, "will he follow you? If it's about a teaching job, aren't there plenty of those in New York?"

"Oh, it's more than just moving," said Aria, waving her arm dismissively. "He's already offered to visit me. His dad left him an apartment in the city when he died. It's just," Aria paused for a moment to gather her thoughts, "it's just I worry about who he'll be outside of Rosewood. I'm worried about who _we_ will be."

"Does he love you?" asked Hanna quietly.

"Yes," answered Aria without hesitation.

"And how does he make you feel?" continued Hanna.

"He makes me feel," Aria let the word hang as images flashed through her head. She was thirteen and crying into Ezra's chest. She was standing outside his bathroom wrapped only in a towel. She watched him discuss the merits of Joyce with a student. She was straddling him in his bed when he stopped her, "cared for," she finished.

"Then everything will be fine," concluded Spencer philosophically. She took a handful of popcorn from Aria's bowl.

"I guess," answered Aria skeptically.

"See," said Emily brightly. Aria stared into her friend's hopeful faces and wished she could tell them all the things she was hiding, the truth about Ezra.

Hanna cleared her throat. "So, we know Spencer and Aria are going to Columbia and Emily's going to Texas for college," she took a deep breath and continued, "and I decided to follow Caleb to California, where his mom is. I'm going to the Art Institute of Los Angeles."

"That's awesome, Han," congratulated Spencer. The friends spent most of the night talking about their futures and the wishes they held close to their hearts.

The next morning Aria woke both early and slightly hung over. She found herself sprawled on Spencer's living room floor wrapped in a blanket and lying face down on the hardwood flooring. She groaned as she picked herself off the floor clutching her head slightly as she got upright. She stumbled as she looked for her shoes. She found one on the coffee table and one under the sofa, tripping over Hanna to reach the former.

She put her shoes on and looked around for her purse, finding them next to Emily on the loveseat. As she grabbed it, Emily moaned something in her sleep and turned over. Walking over to Spencer, Aria poked her in the arm.

"Hmm?" mumbled Spencer sleepily.

"I'm going home, Spence," Aria told her with slurred words.

"Umm-hum," answered Spencer before putting one of the decorative pillows over her face to block the early morning light.

Aria walked out the front door, rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she did so and combing her fingers through her hair. She winced as the Hastings' front door slammed shut behind her, but shook off the feeling as she walked the two blocks home. She shook her head periodically during the walk as she heard the sounds of birds chirping and car motors running, quite different from the nearly dead silence she had woken up to in Spencer's house. As she turned onto her street, she counted the houses until she reached her own.

She let herself in with her key and walked up the stairs as silently as she could to her room. She dumped her purse on the bed and relieved herself of her shoes before going into her bathroom and stripping herself of her slept-in clothes. She hopped in the shower and felt the hot water drip off of her. Once she felt sufficiently revived, she dried herself with a towel and brushed her teeth, putting on a red tank top and a pair of comfy black pants. She slipped on some flats before walking downstairs. As she grabbed a navy sweater from the downstairs closet, she heard the first stirrings of her parents waking. Shrugging, she walked out the front door and next door to Ezra's house.

Aria didn't bother ringing the doorbell, aware that Ezra would not yet be awake this early on a Saturday morning. She used the spare key hidden under the doormat to enter the house and walked upstairs quietly. Turning right, she walked down the long hallway. She stopped for a moment to peek into the second room on her right, where the door was ajar. She glimpsed a piece of dark polished wood before continuing down the hallway to the last room on the left.

She opened the door to the master bedroom before observing Ezra in the middle of the large king-sized bed, hugging a pillow close to his chest. In the tangle of sheets, one bare leg poked out and lay on top of the comforter. She sighed silently before continuing her trek to the bed. She kicked off her shoes before climbing onto the right side of the bed. She laid her head down on the spare pillow and stared at Ezra for a moment before leaning forward to kiss him on the lips.

It was a whisper of a kiss, and Aria wasn't surprised that he didn't respond or wake up at the motion. Instead, a smile tugged at the corner of lips when she saw Ezra smile in his sleep. She leaned back and studied him carefully. She saw that his eyes were tired looking and held fine lines barely perceptible to the naked eye. She saw cracked and chapped lips, plump and curled upward in a slight smile. She saw a smooth forehead that sported a creased brow even in sleep. She saw eyelids that veiled dark blue eyes, as deep as the ocean, framed by the long black lashes the color of coal.

Aria leaned forward again to kiss each of his eyelids. Then, she decided to kiss each of his ears too. She pecked his nose. Then she headed for his lips. This time, instead of the barest of touches, Aria pressed down, harder when she realized he was responding to her, awake even if his eyes were closed. She reached up to grab the back of his neck and she realized that his arms were encircling her, pulling her ever closer. She broke the kiss to giggle slightly before pressing into him more fervently than she had been before. She hooked a leg over his hips and before she knew it, she was on top of him, running her fingers through his dark hair.

She stopped and Ezra's eyes fluttered open, silently smiling. She pulled her arms back until they rested flatly on his chest and then she rested her chin on the backs of her hands. He rubbed her shoulders.

"How did you know it was me?" she asked softly, breaking the silence.

"I recognized your lips," responded Ezra, his voice rough and thick with the edge of sleep.

Aria wrinkled her nose. "That sounds less romantic than I thought it would."

Ezra brushed a strand of hair away from her face as he stifled a laugh. "What are you doing here so early?"

They continued to lay horizontally parallel, Aria on top of Ezra, and Aria suddenly found the designs on Ezra's shirt interesting. "I once promised you," she began, her eyes averted, "that I would tell you how I was feeling, even if it didn't make sense."

"Yes," he encouraged her.

She sighed. "I'm feeling…anxious," she said slowly. "Yes, I suppose that's the best word for it—anxious."

"Anxious about what?"

"College."

"You're going to do great," said Ezra. He brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. "I've told you that."

Aria looked at him. "It's not about me," she told him firmly, her voice laced with gentleness.

"Is this about me?" Ezra asked in disbelief. Aria nodded her head, a difficult gesture considering her chin rested on his chest, so she rolled off of him into her former position. They faced each other, and Ezra rested his on raised hand. "Are you worried about leaving me behind?" he continued warily.

Aria shook her head this time and then mimicked his posture. "It's not about you leaving," she explained. "It's about who you are outside of this house, outside of Rosewood." She sighed in frustration. "Inside this little bubble, you're Ezra Fitz, Elliot and Anne's grandson who teaches at the high school. One day, you'll marry the girl next door and have a handful of children and die on your rocker on the front porch. But outside of this Rosewood bubble," she expanded her arms to make her point, "you're Ezra Fitzgerald, billionaire, who grew up in Beverly Hills with a silver spoon in your mouth."

"I'm still the same person," said Ezra quietly.

"Maybe," replied Aria, in a tone that let him know of her lack of conviction. "Maybe," she repeated. She sighed in frustration. "But even when you're here, you're different from everyone else. I can still see Ezra Fitzgerald in the little things."

"No I'm not," he defended himself.

She scoffed. "You have a Picasso outside your office door and what I'm pretty sure is antique wardrobe from the Renaissance in your guest room. Yes, you are different," she said the last words slowly to make her point. She was quiet for a moment. "If people know where to look," she continued softly, "the differences are obvious."

Ezra looked at her thoughtfully for a moment and observed her wet hair for the first time. It clung to her scalp and hugged her back as it cascaded to her elbows. Her eyes, although clouded, shined like glass, and her lips, luscious and full were a pink rose color. "Is this what you look like when you get up in the morning?" he asked her. He stroked her cheek, a finger lingering before severing contact.

She nearly rolled her eyes at the subject change, but she didn't. "Yes," she replied stiffly.

"This is what I look like in the morning," he replied. He looked down at himself and then back up. "It's not very glamorous."

"You look young when you're sleeping," admitted Aria.

"I am young," answered Ezra. "I'm only twenty-six." He paused before continuing. "Do you know what I spent last night doing?" She shook her head in response. "I was with Hardy. We watched a Phillies game on TV and ate pizza and drank cheap beer. And do you know what I thought about the entire time?" She was silent in response. "I was thinking about you, the one girl I couldn't have." He sighed. "I don't get everything that I want when I want it."

She cocked her head and looked at him thoughtfully. "Are you telling me that things work out in their own time?"

He laughed slightly. "I told you that I thought about you last night and you got patience out of it." He sobered and traced a pattern on the arm of her sweater. "I'm just saying that if it's meant to be it's meant to be."

"How do we know if it's meant to be?"

"Is this really just about college?" asked Ezra.

Aria stilled before shaking her head. "This is about the rest of our lives. You told me about your apartment in New York. You'd never even been there. And then I remembered your house in California. What will the rest of our lives look like?"

"Aria," said Ezra softly, pleadingly. He looked into her eyes. "Everything is going to be all right. I'm the same person I've always been."

"But will I be?" she asked.

He studied her closely. "Come with me to California," he blurted.

Aria's eyes widened. "Are you serious?"

"Actually, I am. Come with me. You can see the house I grew up, and we can do all those touristy things. Maybe we can stop in Vegas for your birthday. Let me," he pleaded.

She sighed. "You'd have to get my parents to agree."

He groaned softly in a way that was slightly humorous. He turned on to his back and Aria followed suit, moving closer to him and put her head on his shoulder. He wrapped her in his arm. "Your dad is going to kill me. I promised to cool it off before graduation. And now you're in my bed and we're talking about going off to California together."

Aria giggled. "Graduation is only three weeks away."

"May 14, 2012," recited Ezra. Aria looked up at him and he shrugged. "I've been counting," he admitted sheepishly.

"Maybe if we say it's a combination of a birthday and graduation present," suggested Aria, "and we take Mike with us, my parents might say yes. You did promise him box seats at a Lions game in San Diego."

Ezra looked at her for a moment before turning his attention back to the ceiling. "After you had your outburst at the dinner table, after we told Mike, your dad came to talk to me. Something about having you in my bed even if we weren't planning on doing anything." He turned his attention back to the girl in his arms. "They'll be wondering where you are." He stroked Aria's nearly dry hair.

"Let's just stay like this for a little while," pleaded Aria. So they did.

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"Is everything taken care of?" asked Ezra into the phone.

"Exactly to your specifications," replied Isaac confidently.

Ezra sighed. "So she'll have no idea that this is coming from me?"

"None of the girls will have any inkling that you were any way involved in this. I've made sure of it." Isaac paused. "The Art Institute here in Los Angeles was easiest. I went to them in person and explained. They were very happy to accept your…donation," he finished delicately.

"And the other schools?" asked Ezra tentatively.

"I talked to the president of the University of North Texas myself," said Isaac. "We spoke on the phone for several hours. After I threw in not only the expenses of that school but also the promise of yearly donations for the next decade, he was more than fine with it." Isaac sighed over the phone. "Columbia was another matter. I had to fly to New York myself to speak with their board of directors. After writing a hefty check, the promise that Elliot Harding would speak a literature forum, and some elbow rubbing, the deal was sealed. Both girls should find themselves welcomed warmly by the administration, courtesy of your generosity."

"Thank you, Isaac," said Ezra sincerely. "I know it must have been difficult leaving Marlene at such a delicate time."

"Oh, she's still three weeks from her due date," responded Isaac. "No worries."

"Really?" asked Ezra with interest. "That means I'll be able to see the baby when we head that way."

"Her parents said yes?" asked Isaac.

"There were rules," replied Ezra dryly, "and they said no to Vegas."

"Oh," said Isaac. "Well I'll work on the details. When exactly did you want everything to be ready by?"

"Graduation is in two weeks. I hope to leave in three and a half."

"Sounds good," answered Isaac. "Anything else I need to take care of for you?"

Ezra chuckled. "Nothing more than the usual."

"Okay then," said Isaac. "I'll talk to you later then."

"Talk to you later, Isaac. Say hi to Marlene for me."

"Will do," he replied hanging up the phone. "See you in a month."

Ezra set his home phone down on the kitchen table and looked out the window above his sink. He smiled. Aria was sitting on her back porch reading. The book she held in her hands was a worn and faded copy of _To Kill a Mockingbird. _

_May 2, 2012_

_Twelve days until graduation. Twenty-three days until we leave for California. Forty-two days until my birthday. Fifty-three days until Ezra's birthday. One-hundred-and-six days until I leave for Columbia. _

_May 5, 2012_

_Nine days until graduation. Twenty days until we leave for California. Thirty-nine days until my birthday. Fifty days until Ezra's birthday. One-hundred-and-three days until I leave for Columbia. _

_May 7, 2012. _

_Six days until graduation. Seventeen days until we leave for California. Thirty-six days until my birthday. Forty-seven days until Ezra's birthday. One-hundred days until I leave for Columbia. _

_May 10, 2012__Four days until graduation. Thirteen days until we leave for California. Thirty-two days until my birthday. Forty-three days until Ezra's birthday. Ninety-six days until I leave for Columbia. _

_May 11, 2012_

_Three days until graduation. Twelve days until we leave for California. Thirty-one days until my birthday. Forty-two days until Ezra's birthday. Nine-five days until I leave for Columbia. English final exam tomorrow. _


	17. Reading and Writing

**A/N**

**I haven't forgot about you guys. Another update should come relatively soon (hopefully within the next week). **

**_BlueSkyMournings_ I do not attend the University of North Texas and I did not grow up in the area. I actually go to college in Tennessee, but I am from Texas. If anyone can figure out where in Texas I'm from, I'll give them a snippet of something from the final chapter of this story. The city I grew up in starts with a B. **

**WARNING:**

**Some content has to do with race-related issues. I'm sorry if I offend anyone. I don't mean to at all but add some perspective instead. I am a bi-racial (bi-cultural, bi-ethnic, bilingual) child myself. **

* * *

Hanna received the first letter, on May 8, 2012. When she saw the white envelope bearing the emblem of the Art Institute in Los Angeles at the bottom of the stack of mail her mother had left her on the counter, she had groaned, believing it to be a notice of some misfiled paperwork. She gritted her teeth and rolled her eyes as she opened it, and then open her mouth in shock when she read it. Not only had she been accepted into the Art Institute, but she had been granted early admission into their school of fashion. Such an entrance was due to a scholarship she hadn't known she applied for. She told her mother the news, squealing with delight as she did so.

May 9, 2012, Emily received the second letter. She found it stuffed in her mailbox, fat and thick bearing the green initials of the University of North Texas, a liberal arts school near her father's Texan military base. She opened it alone in her room after depositing the rest of the mail on the kitchen table. Her shoulders were tense and her expression were worried, the sinking feeling in her stomach told her that it was her tuition bill, an expense her swimming scholarship alone would not be able to cover. But as she tore the letter open, she breathed a sigh of relief. The letter announced that in addition to her swimming scholarship, the university had received a federal grant for students who had parents in the service. Her schooling would be entirely paid for, and included enough money for a small yearly living stipend. Her father heard the tears in Emily's voice when she called to tell him the good news.

Spencer and Aria received their letters the same day—May 12, 2012. It was the day before their English final. Spencer shrugged when she saw the letter from Columbia, certain it was her rooming assignment or tuition bill. She said nothing as she read it, but she smiled softly afterwards. The letter was about a scholarship she qualified for and received, paying for her tuition and living expenses. Spencer knew that it was a gift. That letter from Columbia meant that she would no longer live her life at the whims and expectation of her parents. She would be able to make her own choices.

Aria let her cream-colored envelope sit on her desk for a few hours while she purposefully ignored it, giving herself the illusion of control. Before she went to bed for the night, she finally opened it, and smiled. She texted Ezra the good news. Through the generous donation of a distinguished member of the Columbia community, Aria had qualified for free room, board, tuition, and a stipend from the English department stating that it was in return for working at the Columbia student bookstore. She went to bed that night with a weight lifted off her shoulders and the shoulders of her parents.

Ezra received Aria's text and smiled as he stared out of his bedroom window and at the great big oak tree that glimmered in the moonlight. A tree house had stood on its branches, once upon a time. He shook his head and looked at the angel figurine on his nightstand. Angels, his grandmother had said, angels. They were around even if you didn't always know they were there.

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It was the last scheduled exam of the day, and the last exam that many of Mr. Fitz's twelfth-grade English students would take at Rosewood High. It was a bittersweet moment he thought as he surveyed the class. Noel Khan was talking to his friends about flashing the principal at the next day's graduation ceremony. Holden Strauss was sitting quietly and listening to is iPod. Jenna Marshall sat in her usual seat in the front row, cool and calm was ever. Mona Vanderwaal was filing her nails as Hanna told her about the new dress she had bought. Spencer was furiously studying her notes. Emily looked slightly panicked as she tapped her pencil on her desk and looked straight ahead. Tyler Sperling was carving something into the soft wood of his desk. And Aria was re-reading the last pages of a familiar teal-colored novel. Yes, thought Ezra softly to himself, he would miss this class most of all.

Ezra cleared his throat as he leaned on the edge of his desk, calling his students to order. They sat at their desks at varying paces as Spencer anxiously shoved her notes into the satchel at the foot of her desk and as Aria put her book in her purse.

"Today," began Ezra, "is the last time you will sit at those desks." He swallowed and held his hands up. "It's also the last day that I will stand here in front of you." He let his arms drop to his sides and continued. "When I started this class, in August, I didn't expect to learn what I've learned." He paused for effect and then shrugged. "Yes, sometimes teachers learn things too." The class laughed softly. "We've read many things this year, things about people whose lives don't turn out the way they expect them too, about authors who couldn't anticipate the endings of their own works." He cleared his throat. "You are _not_ taking an exam today," he announced. The class burst into anxious and excited whispers at this last statement.

He headed to the chalkboard as the last of the mutterings faded and wrote three things, his chalk squeaking as the marks were made. At the top of the list was the name _MR. FITZ_, underneath it was the word _PARENTS_, and the final word was _ME_. He turned his attention back to his class. "I want you to take out a sheet of paper and something to write with." His class complied, making as little of a disturbance as it could. "I want you to write three words." He pointed to the chalkboard. "The first word is what you think I expect you to do after you graduate. Take a moment to think about it."

He watched as the class wrote their word down, some students taking more time to think about it than others. "Okay, the second word I want you to write down is what you think your parents expect you to do after graduation." This time pens and pencils scribbled furiously as they scratched on the paper. Ezra waited a few minutes before continuing. "That last word I want you to write is what you expect for yourself after graduation. Take as much time as you need," he cautioned them.

When every student was done, Ezra was back at his initial position, leaning on the front of his desk. "Now," he announced slowly, "I want you to hold up that piece of paper." Every student complied, but he saw that they looked at him oddly. "Now tear it," he instructed, "into tiny pieces." The sounds of paper ripping echoed throughout the classroom, and within a matter of seconds, every student had a pile of notebook confetti on their desk.

"Every expectation that you think I have of you, that you think your parents have for you, that you think you have for yourself, you should get rid of right now," he told them firmly. "If you only live by what you think other people expect of you, of what you expect for yourself, then you're not really living. Expectation means that there aren't any surprises, that there are no twists and turns. Expectation is the lack of spontaneity. Expectation is boring," he announced authoritatively. "It means that you have limited yourself. And worse than that," he continued, softening his voice, "it means that you have allowed others to limit you." He sighed. "I want everyone to take out another sheet of notebook paper." The class complied with only a few titters and rumbles.

When everyone had a sheet of paper on your desk, he began again. "Things evolve. Things change. This semester, we have witnessed the evolution of British literature. But more than that," he gestured to the students in front of him, "we have witnessed changes in ourselves however subtle that they may be. I want you to think, to really think, about the one thing you want for your life. What do you want after graduation? What will you want when you're rocking on your front porch with a dozen grandkids and a wife you've been married to for fifty years? What will you want when you're some hot-shot on Wall Street? When you see your child take their first steps?" He paused. "Take some time to think about it, and then write one word to represent the one thing you want for the rest of your life, the one thing you want to achieve."

Ezra watched as students wrote down their words, one after another. Some students took the time to think about the word they chose, considering every possible option to convey what they meant before writing it down. Aria was not among these students. Some students wrote something down only to scratch it out or erase before writing down another word before writing down another word. Aria was not among these students either. Instead, Ezra watched as she quickly wrote down her word and then looked up and out the window.

"Does everyone have a word?" When the class assented, Ezra instructed them. "Date the top of your page with today's date. It's the thirteenth." When every student had complied, he told them, "Take the page you wrote and fold it half and then in half again." When everyone had completed the task, he smiled at them. "Take it with you, and remember it. Look at it twenty years from now and see if it still applies. For some of you it will, and for some of you it won't." He shrugged. "Sometimes people want different things at different parts of their lives, but if you chose your word wisely, then you'll realize that the most basic thing you want is something you can strive for your entire life. It can make you a better person or," Ezra shrugged, "depending on what you want and how badly you want it can make you the worst version of yourself." He reached for the teal-colored book on his desk.

"This last fall, I read this book." He held it up for his students to see before opening it up to the marked page. "It's by a new author. His name is Elliot Harding, and the book is titled _When Angels Fall._" He paused. "I want to share something with you." Ezra began to read aloud:

_Ian found Meredith alone on the beach. She was wearing the same dress she had worn the day she had finally learned the truth about her parents. Her knees were up against her chest and she rested her chin on top of them, staring out at the wide expanse of the ocean. _

_ Although she didn't say anything, and although she didn't move, she heard Ian come up behind her. "Do you know why I love the ocean so much?" she asked him as he sat next to her in the sand. _

_ He shook his head. "No." _

_ Meredith sighed and drew a pattern in the sand with her hand. "It's because out there, past the horizon, nobody really knows what's there. There could be anything really. I always thought there was something romantic about it, something that could just make everything all better." She took a deep breath. "It wasn't easy, you know, for me to grow up in the sixties or even the seventies. All the white kids said Mama was a whore, and all the black kids said that Daddy was gonna leave us someday for a white wife because he and Mama weren't really married." Her fidgeting fingers found a seashell. She palmed it and felt the irregular grooves and hard edges for a moment before throwing it into the ocean where it landed with a loud splash, sinking below the surface. "My parents lied to me," she finished. _

_ "They didn't, Merry. They protected you," said Ian softly. "And I am so sorry for what happened to them."_

_ Meredith took a sharp intake of breath. She looked at him sadly. "Ian," she began tenderly. She lifted her hand to stroke his cheek, a motherly gesture. "It's not about what they did. It's that they didn't tell me. I grew up my whole life with these expectations of what I thought my parents wanted for me, of what I wanted for myself. It turns out the whole thing is a lie." She exhaled. "What expectations did you grow up with?"_

_ Ian thought for a moment, a look of puzzlement and concern washing over him. "So you're not really mad at them?"_

_ "I was for a long time after I found out," she told him, "but I think I was more mad at myself. Because I cared about what other people thought when I shouldn't have. Life should be about what I want. That's how Mama and Daddy lived. They lived how they wanted to, what they felt was right. They wanted to get married, so they married even if it wasn't an official marriage. And they told the world something in the process." Meredith took a moment to study Ian carefully, and the lines around his eyes and his forehead told her that the young man was suffering much more than a person should. "What do you want, Ian? What's the one thing you want out of your life?"_

_ Ian shrugged. "What is it you want, Merry?"_

_ Meredith turned her attention back to the ocean. "The horizon," she said. "I want to know what it beyond the unknown." _

_ Ian thought carefully for several minutes. "Fulfillment," he finally answered. "I want to do something to make the world a better place." _

_ They odd pair sat on the shore silently for a few minutes, and eventually Ian rested his head on Merry's shoulder. "Merry?" prompted Ian after a few moments. _

_ "Hmm?" she replied. _

_ "Thank-you."_

_ "For what?"_

_ "For being the mother I lost." _

_ Merry smiled silently to herself in response and squeezed Ian's arm in affection. "Ian?"_

_ "Hmm?" he answered sleepily. _

_ "Thank you for being the son I never had." Ian was quiet in response and Meredith looked down on her shoulder to find him fast asleep, exhausted by the night's events. She brushed the hair out of his face and watched the sun rise. _

After he finished the last sentence, Ezra cleared his throat and turned his attention back to the class, setting the book down on his desk. "Your assignment is to look at the word you picked twenty years from now and see if that's still what you want," he repeated. " Remember what you _want _not what you expect." He stopped for a few moments to study the faces in front of him, the last time that they would all be together in this room. Aria caught his eye, and she smiled softly at him throw the silk curtain of her hair. "Class dismissed."

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The night, her last night as a student of Rosewood High, Aria sat with Ezra on the sofa in his living room. She was resting her head on his chest as he read through some of the mail Ezra had gotten from his lawyer.

"Ezra?" asked Aria softly.

"Hmm?" he prompted, his eyes never leaving the page he was reading.

"What was your word? You know, the one for what you want? You read that excerpt from _your _book, so you must have a word, right?"

Ezra set down the papers on the coffee, and looked down at her tenderly, rubbing her upper arm with the hand with the one he was holding her. "Hope," he told her quietly. "I want every day to be filled with hope instead of despair." He was silent for a moment. "What's your word?"

Aria furrowed her brow before reaching into her pants pocket, taking out a folded sheet of paper. She handed it to him without words and he read it silently. When he finished, he handed the paper back to her. She folded it back up and put back in her pocket before leaning against him once more.

Ezra kissed the top of her head. "I'll do my best to make sure that happens."

She kissed him in response. They sat still for a few moments, and Ezra made no move to reach for his mail.

"Aria?"

"Hmm?" she responded lazily.

"Thank you for being someone worth waiting for."

Aria was silent for a moment. "Thank you for waiting," she replied.

She fell asleep like that, with her head on Ezra's chest.

_Mr. Fitz_

_Final Exam _

_May 13, 2012_

_HONESTY_

_I want to live my life as honestly as possible. _


End file.
